Can't turn on Microsoft update in Windows 7 x86

I have a Windows 7 x86 virtual machine that hadn't been used for a while, and today I did a full Windows Update on it (including getting IE11).

I noticed that I hadn't turned on Microsoft Updates, and when I open Windows Update and clicked on the "Get Updates for other Microsoft products. Find out More" link, Internet Explored starts up and takes me first to:

…. (and something I didn't catch)

Which immediately redirects to

Which seems to only contain this image:

This page is not what I was expecting (Microsoft update license etc) and simply shows me how to click on the start menu and run Windows Update.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on here? And how do I actually get Microsoft Updates turned on? This has never been an issue for me in the past.

Note that Windows Update is running perfectly happily on this machine.

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3 Answers

OK .. I now have justification for bashing my head on the table.

I discovered another website that was not working with my VM - but I had a second VM for which it did work. In the VM that worked I had IE9, but in the VM that doesn't work I have IE11. That lead me to remembering that there had been "recent" changes in IE, and then adding that website to the IE11 "Compatibility" mode. After which it worked.

So … I added microsoft.com to the IE11 compatibility mode and all of a sudden I see what I expected:

Which finally led to the following (which looks very similar to the initial page I was seeing)

So the problem is that IE11 can't handle a Microsoft website. Oh the irony.

4

It's definitely an issue with IE11 as suggested by other posters. I needed to check the "Use Microsoft compatibility lists" option in the "Compatibility View Settings" in IE11 in order to be able access the correct page.

I tried adding the microsoft.com website to the IE11 compatibility list and it didn't work for me. Hopefully this works out for you.

3

You can enable Microsoft update with a vbs-script too if IE don't allow you at all;

Set ServiceManager = CreateObject("Microsoft.Update.ServiceManager")
ServiceManager.ClientApplicationID = "My App"
'add the Microsoft Update Service by GUID
Set NewUpdateService = ServiceManager.AddService2("7971f918-a847-4430-9279-4a52d1efe18d",7,"")

or that one to undo the change;

Set ServiceManager = CreateObject("Microsoft.Update.ServiceManager")
ServiceManager.ClientApplicationID = "My App"
'remove the Microsoft Update Service by GUID
ServiceManager.RemoveService("7971f918-a847-4430-9279-4a52d1efe18d")

reference there

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