Windows Update was broken for Windows 7 users

There are a number of reports over the Internet claiming that the Windows Update service broke for Windows 7. When you tried to update the OS, an error appeared with the code 80248015.

Windows Update En Windows 7

The message is as follows:

Windows Update cannot currently check for updates because the service is not running. You may need to restart your computer.

According to Woody Leonhard of AskWoody.com who keeps a close watch on all matters related to Windows patches, the problem appears to be on the Microsoft's server-side. The expiry date of a Windows Update certificate was mistakenly set by Microsoft to 2017-12-03T11:59:25.5067616-08:00

A temporary solution is to set the date to something older than December 3, 2017, and run Windows Update again.

However, as of this moment, the problem seems to have been resolved. The updated certificate has a new expiration date, which is 2025-07-01T00:00:00.0000000-00:00.

So, if you are affected by the issue, restart the OS and check for updates. Your Windows 7 should continue receiving updates, unless you are on the Kaby Lake or newer processor family.

While we don't believe that Microsoft intentionally caused this, their overall attitude towards Windows 7 has been careless and they only support older systems now out of legal obligations and business contracts which they have with enterprise customers. Even the Convenience Rollup for Windows 7 SP1 issued by Microsoft in 2016 did not really solve Windows Update issues on that OS.

Source: AskWoody.

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

3 thoughts on “Windows Update was broken for Windows 7 users”

  1. Столкнулся с этой проблемой. Помог совет убрать (переименовать) папку SoftwareDistribution в папке с ОС, т.к. в ней хранится закешированный файл с неверным сертификатом.

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