Windows 7: Windows could not search for new updates (Code 80244019)

Problem

You are performing maintenance on a user's Windows 7 machine.  You find that it is configured to notify but not download updates. You perform a Check for updates.  A long list is returned.  From the list that is returned, you manually check several of the updates and initiate installation.  You then experience the following error:

You repeat this process by selecting a different set of updates. Each time, you experience the above error.  If you select all updates, the update process appears to hang for an hour or more.

Solution

• Configure updates as: Install updates automatically, and then wait as long as necessary until all updates are installed.
• Once all the updates were installed, you can configured updates back to Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them without further issue.

References

• None

Notes

• It's unclear why this works.  If you know, please leave a comment.