Troubleshooting Windows Update

1) Check the windows is genuine or not, if windows is not genuine then customer won’t be able to receive any windows updates.

2) Check the date and time on the customer’s computer and confirm if they are correct.

3) Check the error code or error message which occurs while running windows updates.

4) Check the “Automatic Update” service from services.msc, STATUS should be Started, STARTUP TYPE should be Automatic. If it is stopped, start the service and try running windows updates again.

5) Rename the Software Distribution folder (c:\windows\software distribution) to Software Distribution.old AND Rename Catroot2 folder (c:\windows\system32\catroot2) to Catroot2.old.

6) If you are unable to rename the folders, stop the automatic update service and then try renaming the folders again. Remember to start the service after renaming them. Try running windows updates again.

7) If it fails again, then check the log created by windows updates from start >> run >> windowsupdate.log . The latest log created would be on the bottom of the window. Check for any specific error code (eg. 0x80040002 or anything starting with 0x…) or any error message.

8) Research according to the error code or error message and troubleshoot further.