After doing a number of updates Windows7 Pro I also had the text personalized settings for Windows Desktop Update displaying but no progress. Download Microsoft Visual C 2010 Service Pack 1 Compiler Update for the Windows SDK 7. Official Microsoft Download Center. Windows Update Broken After Cloning Hard drive. You just migrated your system to a new hard drive by cloning or restoring a backup. Things seem to be working, but Windows Update fails. The error popup says that the service isnt running but task manager says that it is. Youve just been bitten by the new Advanced Format 4k byte sector hard drives. I recently upgraded my Think. Pad T4. 00 Windows 7 Pro 6. GB 7. 20. 0RPM drive to a 5. GB 7. 20. 0RPM drive. It was a simple process using Acronis Cloning Hard Drives With Acronis. I specifically shopped for an older style drive that used 5. The industry is rapidly going to Advanced Format drives that have 4k type sectors Advanced Format wikipedia. The AF drives can cause problems with performance if their partitions arent correctly aligned, especially when running Windows XP. Unfortunately, the on line drive documentation I consulted when selecting a drive was incorrect, and I ended up with an AF drive. Im running W7 which supposedly supports AF drives. It wasnt that simpleFirst, a note about how I ended up with an AF drive. I was aware of possible issues with 4k byte sectors, so I specifically looked for a non AF drive. My first choice was a Western Digital WD5. BEKT from Amazon. It worked OK, but was too noisy Strange Laptop Drive Noise Whoosh Next choice was a Hitachi 0. S0. 28. 58.   All the comments on Amazon indicate that its a 7. K5. 00 5. 00 drive with 5. The one I received was actually a 7. K7. 50 5. 00 Advanced Format drive. So was its replacement. A Hitachi tech told me that the 0. S0. 28. 58 part number indicated a 7. K5. 00 drive, and that I should have Amazon replace it. He later said that Hitachi might ship either model under that part number. Grrrr Back to the Windows Update problem. Windows 7 is supposed to understand AF drives, and correctly aligns partitions. Sort of.   Without the updates in a hotfix or SP1, Windows cant detect the drives physical sector size, and Update and some other features fail. I was already running SP1, so it should have been OK. Microsoft explanation and hotfix link An update that improves the compatibility of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2. R2 with Advanced Format Disks is available  On my Think. Pad T4. 00, the hotfix just errored out with no additional information. To cut to the chase, SP1 and the hotfix werent correctly updating the storage driver, so it couldnt report sector size to Windows. The clue here was that fsutil see that Microsoft link, above was reporting bytes per physical sector as lt Not Supported. My fix was to manually install the latest Intel driver Intel Rapid Storage Technology  link may be stale see update below That installs a lot more than necessary AFAICS but was an easy fix. Windows Update works. Ive also heard that installing the AHCI driver from the Lenovo driver matrix for one of the Huron River Think. Pads T4. 20T5. 20X2. Intel crapware but I have not tested that. After updating the storage driver the hotfix happily announced that it the hotfix was already installed. Update 2. 01. 2. 1. The Intel driver download is a moving target. Try this search link if the one above doesnt work http downloadcenter. Search. Result. aspxProduct. FamilySoftwareProducts Product. LineChipsetSoftware Product. ProductIntelC2AERapidStorageTechnology2. IntelC2AERST2. Update 2. Have a look at the readme that comes with the Intel driver. There are some command line options that allow installing the driver only without all the other unnecessary stuff. Update 2. 01. 2. 1. That Intel link target keeps changing. Try going to Intel. Pick the latest result that matches your operating system. Then download the iataenu. Update 2. 01. 5. 0. For some Lenovo machines Think. Vantage System Update may install an old or buggy Intel Matrix Storage Manager that can cause the same problem. Some discussion here   Think. Vantage System Update 5. Windows 7 Windows Update to fail and inhibits IE downloads. For XP users, the story is more painful. Here are a couple of links to drive manufacturers tools that should help Western Digital documentation and tools Advanced Format Software. Hitachi whitepaper  Advanced Format Drives   Hitachi Alignment tool  Hitachi Align tool. Those alignment tools are the private labeled Acronis alignment tool. Sorry about the long post. Hope it helps someone. With the release of Windows 7 SP1, Microsoft has also updated the Windows 7 DVD media ISO image distributed by Digital River for online order fulfillment. Digital. Windows 7 Wikipedia. Windows 7. A version of the Windows NT operating system. Developer. Microsoft. Source model. Closed source and shared source. Released tomanufacturing. July 2. 2, 2. 00. Generalavailability. October 2. 2, 2. 00. Latest release. Service Pack 1 6. February 2. 2, 2. Update method. Windows Update. Platforms. IA 3. Kernel type. Hybrid. License. Proprietarycommercial software. Preceded by. Windows Vista 2. Succeeded by. Windows 8 2. Official websitesupport. Support status. Mainstream support ended on January 1. Extended support ends on January 1. Installing Service Pack 1 is required for users to receive updates and support after April 9, 2. Windows 7 codenamed Vienna, formerly Blackcomb7 is a personal computer operating system developed by Microsoft. It is a part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 2. October 2. 2, 2. 00. Windows Vista. Windows 7s server counterpart, Windows Server 2. Schaller Floyd Rose Intonation Tool there. R2, was released at the same time. Windows 7 was primarily intended to be an incremental upgrade to the operating system intending to address Windows Vistas poor critical reception while maintaining hardware and software compatibility. Windows 7 continued improvements on Windows Aero the user interface introduced in Windows Vista with the addition of a redesigned taskbar that allows applications to be pinned to it, and new window management features. Other new features were added to the operating system, including libraries, the new file sharing system Home. Group, and support for multitouch input. A new Action Center interface was also added to provide an overview of system security and maintenance information, and tweaks were made to the User Account Control system to make it less intrusive. Windows 7 also shipped with updated versions of several stock applications, including Internet Explorer 8, Windows Media Player, and Windows Media Center. In contrast to Windows Vista, Windows 7 was generally praised by critics, who considered the operating system to be a major improvement over its predecessor due to its increased performance, its more intuitive interface with particular praise devoted to the new taskbar, fewer User Account Control popups, and other improvements made across the platform. Windows 7 was a major success for Microsoft even prior to its official release, pre order sales for 7 on the online retailer Amazon. In just six months, over 1. July 2. 01. 2, and a market share of 4. September 2. 01. 79 according to Net Applications, making it the most widely used version of Windows while Windows 1. Europe and North America. Development history. Originally, a version of Windows codenamed Blackcomb was planned as the successor to Windows XP and Windows Server 2. Major features were planned for Blackcomb, including an emphasis on searching and querying data and an advanced storage system named Win. FS to enable such scenarios. However, an interim, minor release, codenamed Longhorn, was announced for 2. Blackcomb. 1. 0 By the middle of 2. Longhorn had acquired some of the features originally intended for Blackcomb. After three major viruses the Blaster, Nachi, and Sobig worms, exploited flaws in Windows operating systems within a short time period in August 2. Microsoft changed its development priorities, putting some of Longhorns major development work on hold while developing new service packs for Windows XP and Windows Server 2. Development of Longhorn Windows Vista was also restarted, and thus delayed, in August 2. A number of features were cut from Longhorn. Blackcomb was renamed Vienna in early 2. When released, Windows Vista was criticized for its long development time, performance issues, its spotty compatibility with existing hardware and software on launch, changes affecting the compatibility of certain PC games, and unclear assurances by Microsoft that certain computers shipping with XP prior to launch would be Vista Capable which led to a class action lawsuit, among other critiques. As such, adoption of Vista in comparison to XP remained somewhat low. In July 2. 00. 7, six months following the public release of Vista, it was reported that the next version of Windows would then be codenamed Windows 7, with plans for a final release within three years. Bill Gates, in an interview with Newsweek, suggested that Windows 7 would be more user centric. Gates later said that Windows 7 would also focus on performance improvements. Steven Sinofsky later expanded on this point, explaining in the Engineering Windows 7 blog that the company was using a variety of new tracing tools to measure the performance of many areas of the operating system on an ongoing basis, to help locate inefficient code paths and to help prevent performance regressions. Senior Vice President Bill Veghte stated that Windows Vista users migrating to Windows 7 would not find the kind of device compatibility issues they encountered migrating from Windows XP. An estimated 1,0. Windows 7. These were broadly divided into core operating system and Windows client experience, in turn organized into 2. In October 2. 00. Windows 7 would also be the official name of the operating system. There has been some confusion over naming the product Windows 7,2. Vista and increase compatibility with applications that only check major version numbers, similar to Windows 2. Windows XP both having 5. The first external release to select Microsoft partners came in January 2. Milestone 1, build 6. Speaking about Windows 7 on October 1. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed compatibility between Windows Vista and Windows 7, indicating that Windows 7 would be a refined version of Windows Vista. At PDC 2. 00. 8, Microsoft demonstrated Windows 7 with its reworked taskbar. On December 2. 7, 2. Windows 7 Beta was leaked onto the Internet via Bit. Torrent. 3. 1 According to a performance test by ZDNet,3. Windows 7 Beta beat both Windows XP and Vista in several key areas, including boot and shutdown time and working with files, such as loading documents. Other areas did not beat XP, including PC Pro benchmarks for typical office activities and video editing, which remain identical to Vista and slower than XP. On January 7, 2. 00. Windows 7 Beta build 7. At CES 2. 00. 9, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the Windows 7 Beta, build 7. MSDN and Tech. Net subscribers in the format of an ISO image. The Beta was to be publicly released January 9, 2. Microsoft initially planned for the download to be made available to 2. However, access to the downloads was delayed because of high traffic. The download limit was also extended, initially until January 2. February 1. 0. People who did not complete downloading the beta had two extra days to complete the download, and, after February 1. Users could still obtain product keys from Microsoft to activate their copies of Windows 7 Beta, which expired on August 1, 2. The release candidate, build 7. MSDN and Tech. Net subscribers and Connect Program participants on April 3. On May 5, 2. 00. 9, it became available to the general public, although it had also been leaked onto the Internet via Bit. Torrent. 3. 8 The release candidate was available in five languages and expired on June 1, 2. March 1, 2. 01. 0. Microsoft stated that Windows 7 would be released to the general public on October 2. Microsoft released Windows 7 to MSDN and Technet subscribers on August 6, 2.