Windows Update failures

[CSMR]

"Failure configuring windows updates" on a Win8.1 PC. It has been restarting every day for the last month failing to install windows updates. There are about 12 that remain in the list and are continually reattempted.

I have tried installing updates individually, the windows update troubleshooter, "clean boot", system file checker...

Ridiculous how many ways Windows Update can fail and all the manual fixes that need to be done. But none of them are working now.

Any recommendations? A repair install? Or just turn off updates until I install Windows 10 within the year?

 

[sm625]

Dont even get me started on windows update. (I jsut finished ranting about how baaaaad windows is). Seriously, in your case just turn off the updates. (And hope you dont need them in order to upgrade.) And hope that they fix it with windows 10. (But of course they wont.) Can you imagine an iphone failing to update? lol. Even android updates more smoothly than this joke. And it doesnt even tell you anything about what went wrong. It just gives you this stupid frowny face thing. Ugh.

 

[CSMR]

I did a repair install of Win8.1. Turns out that even though it's freshly downloaded from Microsoft it still needs 150 updates straight away. Updates are the worst part of Windows. And it won't let me install them without downloading Windows 10 first!

 

[PliotronX]

Is the Fixit the troubleshooter you tried? I've had about 50/50 luck with it. Manual reset involves stopping BITS and the WU service, renaming SoftwareDistribution in the Windows folder, and starting the WU then the BITS. In that order. I've had additional luck with these routes and if that doesn't get it, a Windows repair, refresh, or reformat would be the only option IME unless you want to spend any more time on it. A cursory scan for malware wouldn't hurt either.

 

[CSMR]

A repair install worked, and also saved 30GB on my hard drive... which means there was 30GB of wasted space previously in unused OS files. I hope tablets will give Windows an incentive to reduce it's expanding waistline.

 

[RampantAndroid]

A repair install worked, and also saved 30GB on my hard drive... which means there was 30GB of wasted space previously in unused OS files. I hope tablets will give Windows an incentive to reduce it's expanding waistline.

I'd be curious to know where those 30GB came from.

For the next time updates fail, upload

C:\windows\WindowsUpdate.log