Window 7 Pro Downloading & Installing updates

[#1]

I downloaded on another PC and transferred on a USB stick.

[#2]

The secret is not to have the Windows Automatic Update Service running when you do the installation.  An easy way to accomplish this is to disconnect yourself from the internet.  You'll find that manual installations proceed very quickly that way.

[#3]

@shutter you can download individual updates from the Microsoft Update Catalog.

It used to be the case that that you could only use Internet Explorer but that has changed recently.

[#4]

Thanks.... Have downloaded those two and saved them to a special folder... so will do them later.. and see how it goes.

[#5]

Now, here's a weird thing, I'm having similar issues on a Vista system.

It's a newly-reinstalled 32-bit Vista Ultimate setup. Initially WU worked fine and swiftly installed loads of updates including SP2.

But then it said it needed to install an update to Windows Update and the next check for updates, started yesterday, is still running!

Any experts here think there may be a relationship or just a coincidence?