I've had the same issue a few times, and there is a solution. Use the WSUS offline tool to download as many updates for the machine in question as possible, which will take a little while but does actually work. Once those have been installed, the windows update will work correctly.

This solution has worked for me on several machines over the last few months, and for several friends, so it seems solid. The tool is pretty good.

Of course, you'll probably want to install GWX control panel or Never10 before you apply the updates in any case or all the telemetry and windows 10 malware will get right back in there, rummaging around in your bits and making you feel dirty...

pca

Woah, I'm very curious what kind of software you're using.

I've also had the problem of needing to replace some software, but everything seems to be working, for the most part. Then again I use mostly small, free utilities. I'm happy that my old favorite, CDBurnerXP, still works on 10. Funny, for a program with "XP" in the name

I got bitten by the forced 10 upgrade and so far I haven't had any problems at all. Everything seems to work properly, from GoToAssist to Tivo Desktop to Picasa.

I'm going to have to find worthwhile start menu tiles, though. At the moment I've removed every single tile that MS loads up the system with except for the weather, which I've made maximum size and still never look at. I pretty much only use the start menu to get to settings.

I just turned on my W7 workstation that's been off the last 8mos.

Made sure to run Never10 before letting it connect.

The next windows update took a long time. At least a day.

Wait. What?

Microsoft's Windows 10 nagware goes FULL SCREEN in final push

Ugh...

Patrick, that WSUS thingy really did the trick. Thanks!

Glad to have helped!

It's got me out of a few holes. I personally think windows 7 is the most usable version of windows so far, which is, admittedly, like saying that this turd over here is the most polished one, but... Unfortunately, considering the sheer amount of windows only software I have to run for various work related reasons I don't have a choice.

pca

Personally I think Windows peaked at 2000, and XP was only marginally worse (in the beginning). I only started running 7 when I got drives too big for XP to recognize. Clearly 10 is just an attempt to ape IOS and install a "store".

So, it took me several days to get the laptop running on 7 again and I got my car reader app running under the XP virtual machine, so all is good. I should send an invoice to MS for all that time...

2000 was my favourite too.