Microsoft Corporation for all of its offspring in the form of operating systems with an enviable regularity releases update packages or patches that seem to be designed to patch holes in the security system and increase the level of the OS’s performance. Unfortunately, in Windows 7, after installing some updates, problems may occur (black screen, braking or complete system freezing, etc.). For many users who are not familiar with the intricacies of customizing this OS, uninstalling Windows 7 updates becomes a real headache, as some packages are uninstallable. That is, standard tools do not work. Further, we consider several options for action that allow you to make and remove old updates of Windows 7 and recently installed updates.
Why are there problems with Windows 7 updates?
First, let's see why there are problems with updates and why they need to be removed. The problem here is that today there is an unprecedentedly strong competition on the motherboard market, and each manufacturer is trying to bring something new to their devices. But you can’t keep track of everything. And updates produced by Microsoft are highly universal and do not take into account the specifics of a particular motherboard chip.
All this leads only to the fact that some updates simply do not fit a particular computer system, although the OS itself functions more or less normally. When a crash occurs, uninstalling Windows 7 updates in most cases affects the PC or laptop in a positive way. But the main thing here is to uninstall them correctly, as well as take some important steps to prevent a repetition of the situation in the future.
Removing Unnecessary Windows 7 Updates: Standard Technique
Let’s digress for now from the main topic and see how you can remove updates from the system using the standard method.
Removing Windows 7 updates is performed from the installed updates section of the "Update Center", which is located in the "Control Panel". In principle, you can do it easier by immediately entering the programs and components section and using the corresponding item (in the previous version, when you click on the view, you will still be redirected to the programs and components section).
Here it is enough to select some installed package and through RMB just run the uninstall line. If required, all packages can be sorted by installation date (this is useful if the time of occurrence of a specific failure or error is known for sure).
Windows 7: uninstall updates. Command line.
But not all update packages can be uninstalled using the method described above. Some critical updates cannot be removed using the standard methodology. What to do in this case? The only possible and trouble-free tool is to use the command line launched with administrator rights.
You can start it from the Run menu by using cmd, call it from the Start menu, or open the cmd.exe executable file located in the System32 directory of the operating system root folder on behalf of the administrator.
Since all update packages are designated KBXXXXXXX, where XXXXXXX is the seven-digit update number code, in the command console, along with the main command, you will need to register this number. In general terms, the uninstall line will look like this: wusa.exe / uninstall / kbXXXXXXX. The number of the patch itself must be remembered or written down when viewing in the installed updates section.
All the capabilities of the main command in terms of using additional attributes can be viewed by entering the wusa /? Line, after which help information will appear in the console.
Batch update deletion using a .bat file
But uninstall in the past case applies exclusively to each individual package. If there are a lot of them, so as not to waste time typing the command every time, you can use the batch removal scheme, which, by the way, works great for those cases when it is impossible to uninstall any standard update.
To do this, you will have to start the standard Notepad, write the lines wusa / uninstall / quiet / norestart / kb: XXXXXXX, where, again, XXXXXXX are the update numbers, and save the created file with manually assigning it the BAT extension (Windows batch file) to the current user directory (for example, c: \ Users \ Vasya), otherwise the file will not be able to start. After that, it remains only to start it with a double click, after which the command line appears, and in it you can see the completion of the removal process. At the end of all processes, you can not restart the computer in any case, although this is necessary for the changes to take effect. Further it will be clear why.
Note the quiet and norestart options. They are necessary so that during uninstallation for each package, confirmation of deletion is not requested.
Actions After Uninstalling Updates
So, the removal of Windows 7 updates through the command line seems to be done, but it's too early to rejoice. The essence of the following problems is that if an automatic update is enabled in the system, whether you want it or not, the system will still (even when rebooting after removal) start looking for packages again. So that updates are not installed, the function must be disabled.
To do this, use the same “Update Center”, select the settings section, and set the preferred action to “Do not check for updates.” If you still need updates, in extreme cases, you can use the download installation with a proposal of the installation, which you can always refuse.
Conclusion
As you can see, uninstalling Windows 7 updates is not so troublesome. If you approach the implementation of such actions from the point of view of rationality, of course, the best option would be to create a batch BAT-file with the inclusion of all the numbers of packages to be uninstalled. But here special care should be taken so as not to add something superfluous (meaning critical system updates).
Finally, as an addition, somewhat distracting from the topic, owners of some laptop models can be advised to use special buttons or menus that allow you to restore the system to the factory state with a complete reset. Naturally, all updates will also be deleted. But this will work only in the most extreme case.