A corrupted update can confuse Windows
Windows 7 Windows Update Not Working [FIX]
I recently worked with a client and they were having a problem updating their Windows 7 PC. Basically they were getting the following error message when they tried to run a check for updates:
Of course, rebooting didn’t help. When we checked to see if the Windows Update Service was running, we saw that it was running. So now we were confused.
In this situation, you can resolve the issue by deleting all currently downloaded updates and trying again. Sometimes an update gets corrupted and confuses Windows and thinks the service is no longer running.