I have seen some of my friends getting an error message in their Windows. The error message is like this :

Windows Update cannot currently check for updates, because the service is not running. You may need to restart your computer.

This error is shown even when the Windows update is actually running on the system.The solution to this problem could be solved by deleting all recently downloaded updates and then retrying. It may be that update might have got corrupted which might have triggered Windows to think that service is not running.


Steps

1. Stop the Windows Update service on your Windows 7.

a) Go to Start. Type services.msc in search box.Press Enter.

b) Windows Service dialog will appear. Scroll to Windows Update service and right click to select the Stop option.

2. Go to folder with path C:WindowsSoftwareDistribution . Delete all the files and folder within this folder.

3. Once you have deleted the contents, go back to services dialog and similar to step 1, start the Windows Update service. All the files and folders will be recreated.

Hopefully this should solve your problem. In case, it does not then you might have to remove and reinstall all Windows updates. If any of you has any other solution, we would love to hear that.