[ADChick]

My mum has tasked me with trying to sort out her laptop which is running extremely slow at the moment. I've started by uninstalling as many unneeded programs as possible which has helped slightly.

I've just running a virus scan now, but the main issue at the moment seems to be Windows update hasn't completed an update since early July. It comes up with a message saying "Windows can't check for updates".

I have had a look around and found multiple possible solutions, none of which has worked so far. At the moment I am trying to install a hotfix (KB947821) but this keeps getting stuck part way through installation and I left it for over an hour last night before giving up on it.

Any ideas what else I can try? I tried the repair option on the F8 boot menu, but it didn't find any problems. There was also a download from Microsoft that said it would fix it, but that failed as well. I've got a feeling this may help solve some issues, but I imagine it will only uncover others!

 

[John Parker]

Try running a virus scan in safe mode and if that still doesn't work it could possibly be the hard drive. Check for infections first and then run a hardware diagnostic if it doesn't seem to come up with anything.

-John Parker

 

[spunk.funk]

run a hardware diagnostic

Step 1:Run the Windows update troubleshooter.
Open the Windows Update troubleshooter - Microsoft Windows Help
2. Go to Start/Search and type CMD, right click the CMD results and Run As Administrator. In the Elevated Command Prompt type chkdsk /R and press enter. Type a Y for Yes and restart the computer. Check Disk will start at next bootup and go through 5 stages and take a while.
For a second opinion, download the ISO image for Seatools in my signature, burn the image to CD using IMGBurn also in my signature. Or burn it to USB Flash drive with SeaFlash, in signature. Boot off of the newly created media and run the Short and Long diagnostic test. If either test fails, the HDD needs to be replaced.
3. If the HDD tests fine, then go to the Elevated Command Prompt as shown above and type SFC /scannow and press enter. This will replace any missing System files. If this cannot fix all files, then download and run SFCFix.exe
then run SFC /scannow again.