Windows 11 update repeatedly fails

Graham S said:

Not sure what this means... Is it just that after the repair of my system it will then go into some extensive updates to catch up?

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Just download and run the official MS Media Creation Tool with the ISO option, this will give you the up to date version unlike the direkt ISO download which is behind.

Graham S said:

There is no $WINDOWS.~BT folder on my C drive - only a $Windows.~WS. Should there be one?

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It is a temporary folder so it may have been deleted when setup does cleanup.

Try downloading the Installation Assistant and see if you can upgrade that way.


If it still fails then look for that BT folder.

Here's what I'd do. I'd do option 2 in that tutorial. I'd get my iso file straight from the source. Download Windows 11
Scroll down to "Download Windows 11 ISO Disk image (ISO) for x64"
Disconnect all usb devices you have connected except keyboard and mouse.

Go to where you saved the downloaded iso. Mount it. Click on the setup.exe file inside it.
An inplace upgrade (ie:repair install) will begin. If that completes successfully, run windows update.

If it does not complete successfully, you will have no other option but to do a clean install. Report back at this point.

The reason I am saying the assistant is the ISO has already been tried and failed.
The assistant will check the system first and may detect an issue that setup does not always detect.
If it does detect an issue it will notify the user what the issue is so the issue can be corrected.
This is what the assistant is for is to detect issues before install/upgrade.

KevTech said:

The reason I am saying the assistant is the ISO has already been tried and failed.
The assistant will check the system first and may detect an issue that setup does not always detect.
If it does detect an issue it will notify the user what the issue is so the issue can be corrected.
This is what the assistant is for is to detect issues before install/upgrade.

Click to expand...

I've just run Installation Assistant, and it seems to have completed successfully, and Windows Update is showing me up to date. I got this last time I ran Installation Assistant (before I posted here), but it then reverted to trying to download the same update with a failure.

BUT, this time seems to be different On-re-running Windows Update it just downloaded and installed some security updates and remains showing up-to-date. I don't really know what has changed except the multiple repair routines (chkdsk etc.) that I have carried out over the last couple of weeks.

Thanks to all who have tried to help - very much appreciated!

This is good news.