Windows 7 Update Extremely Slow

I didn't take exact details on the PC I updated yesterday, but will on the next one I do.  

Don't need to do whatever they suggest you to do, it's totally waste of time.

This whole stupid Windows Update problem happens worldwide, whether you're in Australia, America, Asia (http://www.infoworld.com/article/3055885/microsoft-windows/its-time-for-microsoft-to-fix-the-windows-7-update-slowdowns.html). The problem is not exclusive to your system, it's global and it happens to everyone using Windows 7, regardless of their system setup or configuration.

Until they fix their OS by releasing some patch or service pack, there's nothing we can do. Please don't waste your precious time doing whatever "troubleshooting" steps they asked to do, it's useless.

It is the same for me.  I have an Acer Laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium and a Netbook with Windows Starter 32-bit.

Just lately, I have experienced great difficulty in downloading and installing updates for the two machines.  Neither are suitable to be upgraded to Windows 10 and it does seem as if the is a deliberate policy to make life difficult for Windows 7 users.

After a second attempt, and after running the Windows Update trouble-shooter again, I managed to get one of my PC's to identify updates after over 5 hours of searching.  So, clearly Windows Update still works, although very slow.

Microsoft really has to do something about this as I have head similar complaints from others both on this forum and elsewhere.

I am in total agreement with you that it is a Microsoft issue.  My suspicion is that they have redirected bandwidth from Windows 7 updates to service the Windows 10 upgrades.  They are also being almost abusive about pushing the Windows 10 upgrade onto people whose PC's just cannot take it.  That surely should have been a factor in recommending an update to Windows 10 - but no, not big Microsoft whose communication machine is totally broken - STILL!!  Standby for another anti-trust case over this.

Anyway, the PC I updated last weekend showed an error on the registration of the Windows 7 Update service, which when it was fixed it only took 2 hours to identify, download and install updates (mostly in the identifying stage).

Hopefully when we get past July 29th things 'might' get back to some degree of normality, but I am not holding my breath.

I didn't take exact details on the PC I updated yesterday, but will on the next one I do.  This will be next weekend, since this is my wife's PC that she uses for her work.  Based on the one I updated yesterday this will also take several hours.

To add a little more detail to the setup.

The PC I updated yesterday was an 4 year old Intel Atom based netbook with 2Gb of memory running Windows 7 Pro.  To limit the impact to the Windows I have implemented the Group[ Policy change Microsoft advised, as well as the Registry changes to limit the notifications from the GWX 'nagware'.  I am a competent technician, and fully capable of doing this.

The second PC is a 7 year old laptop running a dual core duo processor and 4Gb of memory with the same configuration.

Both PC's are set to not automatically install updates, requiring a manual action to check for updates.  This is because the netbook slows down when checking for updates, and the laptop is often linked to a cell phone for internet access and I have limited ability to stop it from doing the update check when connected to the cell phone.

These PC's will eventually be replaced, but not until they totally fail and will remain on Windows 7 throughout.

However, the slowness of Windows Update has been evident since before Christmas 2016, and has progressively got worse to the point now where I have to reserve a day to update these PC's.  This has been commented on in the press ands seems due to a bug that has not been fixed in the Windows Update service. 

I also cannot understand why Microsoft insist on pushing the Windows 10 update to PC's that just cannot handle it, and expect normal people to cope with it.