How to make a Windows 7 SP1 Convenience Rollup ISO with all updates up to 2016

I'm kind of done with this project. WSUS gives me what I need. It seems to fix the broken updater so that I can manually update Windows 7 at will in a reasonably efficient fashion as it was intended to work. I only need to deploy Win 7 machines occasionally so it's fine.

There are third-party programs that do lots of useful things. They make things easier from blocking Windows 10 annoyances to uninstalling Windows app bloatware. Of course they are sometimes easier to use.

Windows 7 Update is broken no matter what version of Windows 7 you install.
Surely it is better to install the 2016 version of Windows 7 because one way or another after you get you Windows 7 update to work - you won't have to wait as long for as many downloads. Better start from 2016 instead of 2009 or 2011, right?

I no longer think that the problem is limited. Apologies to TechWizard for thinking it was.


Once 2016 Windows 7 is installed, it is unclear what exactly needs to be done, other than using third-party programs, to fix Windows 7 update.


Links below is where I would start if I were to play with this further.
TechWizard could *not* get these to *just install*.


If someone finds the way, then the question becomes will their installation FIX WINDOWS 7 UPDATE? :

TechWizard said:

Windows6.1-KB3161608 June 2016 Roll Up

Windows6.1-KB3164033 June 14 2016 Security Update

Windows6.1-KB3172605 July 2016 Roll Up

Windows6.1-KB3179573 August 2016 Roll Up

Click to expand...

Historically, every version of Windows beginning with XP has at some point developed brokenness in the updating function that slows it down to a crawl. Well, not sure about 8.1 but it is certainly true with XP (begging with SP3), Vista and 7. Coincidentally? this seems to happen when MS has released or is approaching the release of their new OS. One could conjecture that this is intentional.

One could conjecture that this is intentional.

Click to expand...

Or one could be convinced it's intentional, and be just as convinced that M$ isn't going to fix it this time.

Win8.1 is still updating as normal ?

Yes it is. Windows 8.1 is fine. Windows 8.0 is no longer updated, incredibly, not even with Adobe Flash, which Microsoft took away from Adobe, claiming they will update it instead of Adobe for IE, for our own security. And then they used that to blackmail people into updating to Windows 8.1/10, which means that's why they took it away from Adobe. So they can discontinue the updates, which means people would upgrade Windows, in their thinking, but people just updated to Chrome/Firefox instead and IE lost additional market share, so Microsoft shot themselves in the foot by discontinuing Adobe Flash updates on Windows 8.0.

Windows 8.1 does have restrictions that Windows 8.0 does not have by the way.

Back to Windows 7:
Because of the sheer number of reports, there now is no question that breaking Windows 7 update with no clear way to fix it, is intentional.
It's a question of numbers, not opinion.

But... because of the number of reports of people who eventually somehow got the Update to work again:
This can be done.


Whoever wants to can install 2016 Windows 7. Make a drive image.
Then experiment on getting the update to work, without using third party programs, we know those work.
Then reimage back and test if the solution can be applied to that fresh 2016 install.

There has to be a way, no one has posted it *clearly* just like they didn't post how to make the 2016 Windows 7 .iso *clearly* before this thread.
One day when I have time I will do it, but if anyone else finds a verified way without using third party programs before then, that would be the conclusion to instructions on how to install Windows 7 through official-only means...


We have about three and half years to go on Windows 7.

There was someone on a forum who figured out how to get around the brokenness of the Windows XP SP3 updater. It involved a certain sequence of steps and restarts which began with installing IE 8, turning off auto update, restarting . . . I can't remember the details but one thing sticks in my mind and that is you could not auto update back on or it would be broken again. I used to have the steps written down in a text file but I'm not sure if I can find it again, not that it matters for the current discussion. But it did not involve third party tools.

But why I bring this up is because I wonder if the workaround fix for this problem in Windows 7 might be similar. A starting point might be figuring out what happens with Win 7 SP1 that breaks the updater, then avoiding that. I wonder what would happen if you installed an early version of Windows 7 without SP1, turned off automatic updating and installed all updates manually?

Excellent question, just to experiment.
We are clear however, that the 'holy grail' we are after here is the two step process:
1. Insert DVD/USB
2. Install Windows 7 2016

The moment install finishes, your first boot gets you to a working Windows 7 update immediately listing *only* the (very) few updates released after you made your Windows 7 2016 .iso

The entire point is to bypass hours/days of update downloading. I personally feel like we are just a couple of short steps away after creating that .iso.
If you guys do not figure it out, I will eventually, as soon as I find time.

That would be ideal but even if you had to install all 300 updates (or whatever the number is) since the first edition of Win 7 came out, and the process gave you no other grief, that would better than what we have now. If we could get your ISO update build process to the point, c6, where all subsequent updates stalled without issue then it would be golden. But I don't want to build a Win 7 PC for someone that has all the current updates installed up to the point of the build and then not be sure the customer would get anymore updates after deployment.

The thing I don't understand trents is this:
What is the alternative?

If you don't use the 2016 DVD, you only have two choices: 2009 Win7 or 2011 Win7+SP1, correct?
Well both of those have broken Windows Updates.

So what does it it matter if the update on 2016 is broken or not, you're going to do whatever you're going to do on 2009/2011 Windows 7... and that same thing you can do on the 2016 and not have to download five to seven years of updates *once* you finally fix the Updater using whatever means you would use anyway.

I may still play with this tonight. Give it a shot myself.

What I mean is, I'm not sure if your slipstream method makes it's own kind of brokenness that results in no more updates ever being installed automatically or if it has no impact on the automatic update process. From what I can tell, Win 7 PCs that have been in service for years and left to themselves seem to keep getting updates, even if it is a slow process. But when they are already deployed and in use, nobody seems to care if the updating process takes weeks. It's the builder trying to get machines ready for deployment that is the one for whom this is an issue.

It's hard to know at this point because not enough time has passed since you developed this method. This issue needs to be tested. Is the automatic updating still intact after the slipstream install is done.

Well my friend, I just created the Windows 7 2016 USB.
I created a partition for Windows 7. I will be doing it in half an hour or so.

My initial thoughts are these. We know that the 2016 .iso goes through April.
Then there was massive confusion if it really is up to April or up to May, because all of a sudden we are talking about June, July and August Rollups only.

I am surprised none of you noticed that there is a May 2016 Rollup that May 2016 have to be applied first?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3156417

So that is the starting point for me after the 2016 iso is installed, assuming you are all correct and Windows Updates end up being inaccessible for me too (I hope Windows 7 Update is broken for me too because then I could figure out how to fix it.)


I will install Win7 2016, then make an image, then after I figure out the cure, I will reimage back and test the cure twice to make sure it really solves the problem.
So hopefully by the middle of the night tonight, I'll either figure it out or be defeated by the Microsoft design to keep Windows 7 Update broken for most people who fresh install Windows 7.

Fair enough. But make sure you get some shuteye. Take care.

Hmmm didn't get notified of any extra posts to this thread so I missed all of this!

I'll just make it clear for anyone still having issues...

Adding each update consecutively using DISM to your image should install Windows 7 to a point where it has a majoirty of the updates and the updater should be in working order to pull the last few remaining updates (under 100 of them).

The order I added the updates to my install.wim was this:

Service Pack 1 - I had to follow this guide to manually add SP1 to my Enterprise install.wim file since an official release does not exist.

KB3020369 April 2015 Service Stack Update

KB3125574 Convenience Roll Up

KB3161608 June 2016 Roll Up

KB3164033 June 14 2016 Security Update

KB3172605 July 2016 Roll Up

KB3179573 August 2016 Roll Up

Once I had these added, I committed my changes with the unmount command and simply put the modified install.wim in the sources folder on my bootable flash drive that had an unmodified version of Windows 7. Then installing Windows 7 worked flawlessly and the updates I had injected were also visible as installed updates in "Installed Updates".

After verifying that I opened Windows Update and was able to successfully check for updates and execute them. There were 71 important updates total left.

To save myself time and bandwidth at work I am going to be adding the Windows Readiness Tool since that is another large update. IE 11 seems like another good one to integrate as it is also quite large. After that everything else is sub 50MB per update - most of them being security updates that are merely KBs large. They install quickly and require minimal reboots. I went from a "fresh" install of Win 7 Ent to a completely updated one within 30 minutes and only one shutdown and one restart.

Edit: I've never seen that May Roll Up until your post and I searched and searched for it - no idea how I missed it. I might as well add that one too, but it doesn't appear have a crucial effect on Enterprise to function properly.

Awww. It will not get past the first Windows 7 logo screen... I was so close to helping you guys, I'm sorry.
I can't disconnect every single hard drive and peripheral I have, which is what I would need to do to address this.

Windows 7 is so much inferior to [Windows 8+Classic Shell] which is really Windows 10 without all the headaches, if only 7 licenses would work under 8

No joy on my install, either. Update was broken out of the gate. Using WSUS now to install updates. I have peripherals that W7 doesn't see/recognize. I haven't wanted to shut down and unplug stuff while I thought I was making update progress. I'm not going to bother fixing stuff until updates are current. I can't believe how badly M$ screwed W7 and it's users.

I will try this on another computer in a week or so.

And WSUS doesn't seem to be working now. It gets Windows Update to find the updates, but they won't download, and the WSUS installer seems stuck trying to install IE11. I'm going to try downloading IE 11 separately and install it.

c627627 said:

I will try this on another computer in a week or so.

Click to expand...

I figured out how I fixed it last time. Can you slipstream IE 11 (requires IE 10) in to the OS? Windows Update uses Internet Explorer. I got IE 11 downloaded (three tries) and installed, and all my updates were magically installed on a restart. MSE also updated. Check For Updates seems to be stuck again, but the 90 it showed before are gone (installed). Now on to figuring out why W7 can't find 4 TB of storage or a TV tuner card. It never ends.

Alaric said:

I figured out how I fixed it last time. Can you slipstream IE 11 (requires IE 10) in to the OS? Windows Update uses Internet Explorer. I got IE 11 downloaded (three tries) and installed, and all my updates were magically installed on a restart. MSE also updated. Check For Updates seems to be stuck again, but the 90 it showed before are gone (installed). Now on to figuring out why W7 can't find 4 TB of storage or a TV tuner card. It never ends.

Click to expand...

That's the other thing. The Microsoft download catalog website/download basket seems to have a lot of problems. Took me many tries to get stuff out of my basket onto my computer the other night when I was trying to get the updates from April on listed by TechWizzard. They fight you at every turn.