Windows 7 says it can not be updated due to Windows Update Service not running

Question

My installation of Windows 7 refuses to fetch updates. When going to “Windows Update” in the control center (I hope it is “control center” in english, sorry I do have a german installation where it is “systemeinstellung”) it says that windows can't search for updates since the windows update service is not started. It suggests to restart the pc, but that does not help.

When I look up the Windows Update Service in the Services Management Console it says the Update Service would be up and running. When manually restarted, no warnings show up. Yet the update preferences pane will say the same.

What is going on here? What should I do to update Windows 7?

Here is a screen shot of the error message:

Answer 1

As noted by @user142485, the MS article has a suggestion thatt has worked. AS the link may or may not be there in the future, the key steps are:

1.Goto start > type services.msc 2.Scroll down to find Windows Update service 3.make sure Windows Update service is stopped, else right click and stop it 4.Go to C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\ and delete all files in it 5.Come back to services.msc and start Windows Update service