win 7 64 sp1 keeps installing updates each reboot and shutdown

[HipHoper]

Hello !

Having this new client with Dell vostro 1015.She bought her laptop 3 years ago, And since she had some registry problems and no antivirus, I needed to re-install windows on her laptop.
I installed win 7 x64 that came from her dell recovery cd and she also had a dell license for it underneath her laptop, And although the system was built originally to support windows xp, All went well when i installed updated drivers.
I brought her the laptop few days ago after updating all the updates from microsoft for office and windows and after installing ms security essentials.
She contacted me that for the past few days every time she turns on the computer it start to install many updates and it also install updates on shutdown.
I told her that this might happen for 2-3 restarts, but it keeps installing updates even after 5 restarts.
It gives no error, But it is very time consuming and sound suspicious to me.
Is there a way to disable pending windows updates besides disabling future updates through the control panel ?

Thank you

[Zonie]

Hi Hiphoper. You might find THIS article helpful for the problems you are experiencing. Secondlt, you can go to control panel > Windows Update > Change Settings. I always have mine set to check for updates but let me choose to download them. This way I can make sure there is no problem with them by waiting for a week or so.

[HipHoper]

Hi Zonie,

Thank for the link. Do you think if i'll change the updates settings to ask me or disabled, Will it also be applied to downloads that are already pending ?
I also found a suggestion in some forums to rename pending.xml file :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2509997/en-us

It's number 11 on the solution menus

I will try it tonight and will report

[Zonie]

Usually when the update setting is changed, it does apply to the updates pending as well. Good luck and await to hear fom you.

[Ferrit]

Had this a number of times.
Usually I go to the last update and manually try to install them 1 at a time, til I find the
update that is causing the problem. Then I find out why that particular one has a problem.
Usually the problem is caused by 1 update at the top so I start at the bottom.

[CCT]

You could also try this -> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971058

[HipHoper]

Thank you for all the tips guys. It seems the issue got fixed by itself after few more computer restarts. maybe windows got fed up with its own updates lol.
I am taking into memory your suggestions so i might use them in case it happens to me again.