Yes, this is also going to be a love letter to WSUS. I'm Canadian, so I'll say... "sorry, eh".
I purchased a used Compaq HP Deskpro 6000 from a vendor who sells to school teachers (your Ontario [Canada] tax dollars help subsidize technology to the likes of me [I won't waste it... I buy used gear for the home-office]). For ~$500, I got the machine, a Win7 pro (64-bit) download, a 1TB hd, and 4GB of RAM. When I got it, the OS was a mess! I suspect that they simply re-registered the MS sticker key and hit the RESTORE feature. The OS's WU feature was NOT working. I used the steps at How To Geek (10/25/2016 posting [http://www.howtogeek.com/247380/how-to-fix-windows-update-when-it-gets-stuck/ ]). In a rage, I reinstalled the OS and all of the needed HP drivers (that took a couple of evenings). Still, WU was hanging up. Eventually, after exhausting all the their options, I downloaded WSUS to try it out. The generator-app worked fine. The client got stuck for ~6h. No, no, no. I went on your (excellent) discussion boards and searched out the issue. If followed the posted advice (with my added neurotic steps): (a) shutdown MS Security Essentials; (b) deselected all automatic WU features (as this forum suggested); (c) ignored the copious red-flag warnings from the OS (bless their M$ hearts); (d) unplugged the NAT cable (my 46-year old fears and watching too many 1980s SciFi flicks [WarGames, anyone? Tron?]); (e) warm rebooted. (f) Result = fired up the WSUS client and let it run. MS-DOS screen finished scrolling, with a "success" final line. (g) Outcome = It appears very promising. MS Security Essentials back online. Normal boot-up. Yes, I reactivated WU (that might change). No, I'm still getting a big
red X on WU after steps (a) to (h).
Yes, WSUS helped me out and I'll donate (via PayPal?). This program is of the same calibre as my other Donation-ware application: KeePass. Thanks, eh. Scubaman, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.