What he saw, was just what he said: "clicked Update Now.  Same issue with "critical fixes".  It acts like it's downloading something, gets all the way to 100% done, then says "Nothing New Downloaded". "

... and it (still) does that, with 2023 Desktop.  Lather rinse repeat.  If the program is on the most recent version, then Updates shouldn't see anything to download (acts like it's downloading ("critical fixes"), gets all the way to 100% done, then says "Nothing New Downloaded".)