How to fix “Windows Update cannot currently check for updates, because the service is not running”

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

It can be caused by corrupted data for Windows update. If this is your case fix could be easy.

• go to services and stop Windows update service
• locate C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\ folder and delete all its content
• start Windows update service
• check for updates

Start Windows Updates

You can try stopping and restarting Windows Update Service (wuauserv). Open a command line window (run as administrator) and enter the following lines:

net stop wuauserv  

regsvr32 %windir%\system32\wups2.dll  

net start wuauserv