A new method to update older versions of Windows is now available.

Named ‘Legacy Update’, it is a modification which restores installing Windows updates on Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1. This has been confirmed working as of June, 2023.

Legacy Update is a free, open-source program, developed by kirb, with contributions from many people.
The way it works, is that it changes Windows Update and its ActiveX control to point to a different update server and update website. That server still has all the updates for older versions of Windows and supports the older encryption methods needed to download the updates.

In addition to updating, it will also download the most recent Service Pack and fixes some issues with Windows indefinitely searching for updates. This will greatly reduce the time and effort to update a newly installed copy of an old version of Windows.

In my opinion, it is the best way to update old computers as of 2023, and confirmed by my testing, it also works perfectly on the Vaio UX.

You can download the program for free from https://legacyupdate.net/. If you like it, consider giving a donation to the developers on their Patreon or Github sponsors page.

Upon installation, if you are not on the latest Service Pack, the installer will automatically download and install the service pack for you. Also, it may offer to install some updates which are needed to fix the indefinite ‘searching for updates’ issue. Once everyting the installer offers has been installed, you can use the regular Windows Update section in the Control Panel or the ‘legacy update’ shortcut to access and install updates for Windows.

This is not an affiliate post. The author of Vaio UX Plaza is not affiliated with Legacy Update in any way. The post has purely been created because I highly recommend using Legacy Update to update older versions of Windows.

This article was written in February, 2023, but has been revised in June 2023 to reflect that Windows 8 and 8.1 are now also supported and in December 2023 to describe how you should install Legacy Update.