Unfortunately, there isn’t a single answer for why this happens. In some situations, services that depend on the Windows Update tool might be turned off, and in others, important update-related files might be corrupted or installs could be blocked by security software.
What to Do When Windows 10 Updates Won’t Install
Follow these steps in order, preferably rebooting your computer after each one and then re-checking Windows Update (Step 1 below) to see if it fixed the problem. While this might seem like a no-brainer, try it anyway—selecting the Check for updates button might be all you need to do to make Windows 10 install updates again. To do this, open Control Panel and search for and open Troubleshooting. Select View all from the left side of that screen, and then choose Windows Update from the list. Follow the on-screen prompts to run the troubleshooter. Select Update now at the top of that page to download the update utility. Once it’s downloaded, open it and follow the prompts to install the latest Windows 10 feature updates. To check on this scenario, open Windows Settings through the WIN+I keyboard shortcut or through the Power User Menu and then select Network & Internet. Select Properties next to the active connection type to see the metered connection details. If applicable, toggle Set as metered connection off and then check for updates again. Any pending installs should now complete. Here’s how: search for and open services in the Start menu, open Windows Update from the list, change the “Startup type” to Automatic, select Start, and then select OK. If that doesn’t fix the update issue, try starting Background Intelligent Transfer Service and Cryptographic Services as well. After opening Command Prompt as admin as described through that link, type this command followed by Enter: Do the exact same thing for all of these commands (execute it, wait for it to finish, and then continue with the next one):
net stop cryptSvcnet stop bitsnet stop msiserverren C:\Windows\System32\catroot2 catroot2.oldnet start wuauservnet start cryptSvcnet start bitsnet start msiservernet localgroup administrators networkservice /addnet localgroup administrators localservice /add
The contents of that folder are temporary files that are sometimes used to install operating system updates. If those files become corrupted, it could result in Windows 10 not installing updates. To do this, open the Run dialog box (WIN+R) and enter that path to open the folder. Highlight everything that’s in there (Ctrl+A) and then use Shift+Del to remove it all. Ample hard drive space is needed before updates can be installed, so try gaining some more free space by emptying the Recycle Bin, deleting files, backing up files elsewhere, or uninstalling unused programs.
