Good evening....(in my best Alfred Hitchcock voice)

Per my other thread I just did a fresh install of Win 7.0 32bit.

The issue: "Windows was unable to install auto updates"....it just refused to work.
After much web searching I just got it fixed.

This worked for me: do the below in sequence.
After doing so it may take a 1/2 or so for the little red flag in the task bar to go away and the auto updates to start.

Download and Install IE11. (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/internet-explorer-11-for-windows-7-details.aspx)
2. Restart your computer.
3. Download the KB3102810 update but not install it yet (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3102810)
4. Restart your computer again
5.Install the KB3102810
6. Restart
7. Stop Windows Update Service and Delete the “SoftwareDistribution” folder.
8. Restart your computer.
9. Search for updates. (I just waited and did NOT do a manual search request)

webpage: http://www.repairwin.com/windows-update-8007000e-error-solved/

Maybe this will help someone having the same issue.

Back to it....

Good tip.

I just re-installed Windows 7 (64-bit) recently also and had the same problem of updates not, well, updating. After some searching, I found a list of updates (it was about 6 or 8 of them) to download manually and install them manually, which then allowed Windows to continue updating. It worked like a charm. I would have to look to see if the one posted here was in the list (and maybe that's all that was needed), but I installed the ones listed (took just a few minutes to do, although it took several hours searching to get to that web page that listed them in the first place). If I still have that info, I'll post the list, as that may help someone as well.

I doubt I'll be re-installing Windows 7 from scratch again, as I have captured disk images and would re-install that way instead. I have an image with the basic Windows+Office+all updates to that point installed, then another cumulative image with my other office and productivity apps installed, then another cumulative image with all my music applications installed (all my music libraries are installed to a different drive, so recreating the C: drive doesn't take very long at all, and as long as the drive letters match up, everything works).

Howdy...

I'm glad you got it resolved.
I did a lot of searching too and was apprehensive about believing any online fixes.
Hence, I had success and could save others some grief.
I have no clue as to why this occurs and like your self I won't be doing a fresh install anytime soon.
This rebuild needs to outlive me!

Excellent....you have your backing up protocols well defined.

Thanks for adding extra info for others in the same enigmatic Microsoft abyss.

Carry on....

In my experience, when an otherwise healthy Windows system suddenly goes south, it is invariably due to a problem with Windows Update. I recently battled for a day with one of my laptops which would not upgrade to W10 V 1607.