A friend of mine "upgraded" his laptop to Windows 10, then he gave it to me complaining of several problems, mainly the sleep/wake functionality is broken and the brightness can't be changed with Fn keys, he was hoping I'd make it work, and I did. I simply moved everything he wanted from C to D, then I simply stuck a bootable USB with Windows 7 and just formatted C. Now it's time to run the already painful process of updating Windows 7 but nope, let's make it more painful.

https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&q=windows+7+checking+for+updates+after+a+fresh+install&oq=windows+7+checking+for+updates+after+a+fresh+install&gs_l=serp.3...63320.64983.0.65285.11.10.0.0.0.0.242.849.0j1j3.4.0....0...1c.1.64.serp..9.0.0.xZWpgbX9vdU

What a clossal waste of time and pain in the ass Windows can be. 

Why is this even a problem so many people run into ? and why all the solutions proposed are so unintuitive?  If crucial security updates are this hard to obtain, then I should use another OS.... but there isn't any.

EDIT:

I shoud make it clearer that I am not talking about Windows 10.

I am talking about getting the routine "Recommended" updates after installing any version of Windows. It's stuck on "checking for updates" forever, nothing else happens. I googled the problem and you can check the result in the OP for yourself, millions of results TONS of people complaining. I shouldn't be running into such a problem because crucial security updates are a big deal, yet, it's a wildly popular bug.

Windows 10 problems was a whole another story, no need to get into. I thought it would be easier to do a fresh install of Windows 7, and boy I was so wrong.

The only way to upgrade an OS is to do a clean install, almost everybody who complains about compatibility issues with W10, did the update and kept all their programs.

Don't do that, It didn't work with Windows 8, and it doesn't work with 10.

Do a clean install, and then get the latest drivers you'll need for your machine.

^ What he said, can't say i like Windows relative to Apple OS, but it works.

Well, it worked for my gaming PC (upgrade from Win 7 64-bit to Win 10 64-bit), my brother's PC (upgrade from Win 7 64-bit to Win 10 64-bit), and for my tablet (upgrade from Win 8.1 32-bit to Win 10 32-bit) without any problems. Perhaps I should also play Lotto.

I did the upgrade and have no problems with my windows 10

 I like it more than 7,8, and especially vista for a multitude of reasons.

I can attest to that. I have a clean Windows 10 install.

My PC awakes itself from sleep (only on Windows, my Debian Linux partition never does that). Game compatibility is weirdly broken in places (anti-aliasing is simply broken in some games). After playing some older games, my desktop is thrown in dissaray and I have to reorganize my icons. When my display sleeps after a period of inactivity, it won't wake up unless I disconnect it and reconnect it (again, no problems on Debian). The OS has shut itself down twice.

It doesn't help things when this is all in all the third Windows 10 install on my PC and Windows 10 is from time to time a confusing mess of bad design decisions that makes finding setting unnecessarily hard.
Serioudly, finding settings and updating things on LXDE or MATE enviroment based Linux distro's is a lot easier I can tell you.

I am not talking about Windows 10.

I am talking about getting the routine "Recommended" updates after installing any version of Windows. It's stuck on "checking for updates" forever, nothing else happens. I googled the problem and you can check the result in the OP for yourself, millions of results TONS of people complaining. I shouldn't be running into such a problem because crucial security updates are a big deal, yet, it's a wildly popular bug.

Windows 10 problems was a whole another story, no need to get into. I thought it would be easier to do a fresh install of Windows 7, and boy I was so wrong.

Ya had that happen here also. Just turned off put hard drive to sleep, that fixed it, Until MS release a patch.

That happened once back on the "ol" Mac OS 8 Days

Computers...

Hehe, I just recently ran into that problem of updating Windows 7 as well! I usually use Linux, but for the first time in several years I recently needed Windows for something. I had a Windows 7 installation on my notebook, tried to boot it, only to discover that my Windows installation was somehow broken and wouldn't boot.

"Okay, simply reinstall Windows 7!", I thought. I did, and it took just about half an hour or something. Then I thought: "I should also instantly install all the recommended updates!" Before actually running update, I found some hint on the internet that updating Windows 7 can take insanely long, and that it's therefore strongly recommended to install the latest Windows 7 service pack etc. first, and so I did.

Nevertheless, despite having installed the latest Windows 7 service pack first, the whole updating took longer than 24 hours. It just kept "checking for updates" for hour after hour, it was just ridiculous. Several hours later however, that phase was suddenly over and it actually installed the updates.

I too had sleep/wake issues and it rendered Maya unusable for me. I'm going to have to get a new build anyway and throw this thing in the trash.