Windows Updates on a new install

[davexnet]

Hi all,
I've just installed 8.1 fresh from the MS ISO.
My question has to do with the Windows Updates. Are there any standalone updates
I should install before WU will work properly? I seem to remember something like this in Windows 7
for those who wanted to avoid Windows 10; eventually WU no longer worked, but a standalone
update got everything going again.
Sorry if this has been answered already elsewhere in the forum

 

[peryneil5]

If your installing a new Windows by choice or by necessity, you will soon be pretty sick of wasting hours downloading hotfixes from Windows Update and continuously downloading patch after patch. Installed Windows 7 to see how many updates are available for the most popular version of Windows, it surprises me to see it has 117 important updates ready to be downloaded!
Hope this one helps. Go2top.

 

[davexnet]

I'm not sure what happened but after the install, before any updates were applied, the system was incredibly sluggish, I couldn't do anything - until I disabled Windows Defender. Then approx 70 important updates and 84 optional showed up. I installed 62 security updates, im still researching the rest. As with Windows 7 seems there are updates to avoid. I'm out of town at the moment but will research it when I get back
I installed it just to take a look, not activated at the moment. I earlier tried and tested Windows 10 but I had too many problems with having no control of Windows updates
causing issues I got sick of it in the end

 

[mrjimphelps]

If you have done a clean install of Windows 8.1, I suggest that you install all "important" updates. However, do not install any of the "optional" or hardware updates.

Once you have done that, re-enable Windows Defender. If Windows Defender continues to slow your system down, disable it and try another antivirus product.

 

[davexnet]

Yes it seemed to go well, Defender is working now. I did hide kb2976978. Earlier updates,
such as kb3068708 which three years ago it was advised to skip is now wrapped up in security
rollups and is now unavoidable. All of these articles on the web that mention this kind of updates
(mostly related to telemetry - perhaps a frowned upon topic in this forum?)
are useless now because they don't take this into account

Among the optional updates I did install a few that seemed relevant.
Next I'd like to find out about the metro apps - are they using any resources if I don't use them? I suspect they are.
Any advice on a strategy to deal with them appreciated.
Thanks

 

[staustelladam]

Among the optional updates I did install a few that seemed relevant.
Next I'd like to find out about the metro apps - are they using any resources if I don't use them? I suspect they are.
Any advice on a strategy to deal with them appreciated.
Thanks

I hate the idea that MS thinks I want any of the Metro apps, let alone all of them. I rooted around forums (this one I think) and found a PowerShell method to remove them and it worked well:

Start/Programs/Admin Tools/Power Shell - run as admin

Type the following three steps (ignore number/- ... just type from Get)

1 - Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers
2 - Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage
3 - Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -online | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -online

Hope that helps.