We were unable to complete the update, what should we do? I can't configure Windows updates - what should I do? Instructions, tips. Unable to install update due to lack of space

You are trying to install an update in Windows 10, but a notification is displayed that it cannot be completed, after which the system starts undoing the changes. Let's find out more about how to fix this error.

Errors that the installation cannot complete are not new to users. Many people have encountered an error in Windows 7 in which the system notifies that updates could not be completed, and then the process of undoing the changes starts. For some time now, more and more users have been seeing this problem in Windows 10.

The system downloads updates correctly and displays information that they are ready to install. If you ignore the installation, then after a while the OS itself will “throw out” a notification that you should update Windows, prompting you to restart the computer to complete the operation.

And this is where the problem begins. The update is theoretically installed, but at some point a warning appears about a possible failure. The notification “We were unable to complete the updates” appears, and the screen below displays “Undoing changes” - Windows 10 begins the uninstallation procedure and rolls back the system to the state before it was installed. And so again and again, every time you try to update the OS. How to fix?

Method number 1. Windows Update Troubleshooting Tool

To get started, you can use the automatic troubleshooter in Windows 10. This is an official tool that can be downloaded from the Microsoft website. The utility diagnoses the system area for faults, and then tries to solve them using basic methods. The effectiveness may be less or more depending on the problem, but it is always worth giving this program a chance when starting to troubleshoot problems.

Download the troubleshooter

Once downloaded, launch the utility and follow the onscreen instructions. The program will automatically search for problems and then try to fix them.

If you see a notification that "" has been restored, you can try updating the system.

Method number 2. Clearing the SoftwareDistribution folder

The SoftwareDistribution folder contains update installers. The problem may be due to them being damaged or compatibility errors. Therefore, it is worth deleting the contents of this folder and restarting the service.

To be able to do this, you must temporarily stop the service, otherwise file deletion will be blocked.

Press the Win + R key combination and enter the command:

Find the service in the list, right-click on it and select “Stop”. The service will be suspended.

Again, simultaneously press the Win + R keys, enter the path to the directory below and press Enter:

C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution

You need to delete all the contents of the SoftwareDistribution directory - it should remain empty.

After deleting all the files from the folder, open the list of services again (enter the command “services.msc” in the Run window), find, right-click on it and select “Run”.

Now try updating the system.

As you know, the seventh version of Windows OS automatically downloads and installs updates. The operating system communicates with the Microsoft host whenever the computer connects to the Internet. Theoretically, this behavior should have a beneficial effect on the operation of the PC, because the installed packages are developed specifically to eliminate found vulnerabilities and optimize the operation of programs. However, in practice, the best option is to disable automation. How to cancel Windows 7 updates and why to do it will be discussed in the article.

The main reasons for disabling the built-in update utility

• The main problem caused by updates is sudden crashes and critical errors after completing the installation procedure.
• The operating system stores all downloaded packages. Over time, there are a lot of them, and this reduces the free space on your hard drive. When the value of this parameter reaches a critically low level, the OS will simply refuse to boot.
• When the Windows 7 update program downloads the files it needs, surfing the Internet becomes uncomfortable. This problem occurs especially often among users connected to a “narrow channel”. If the provider limits the amount of traffic per unit of time, automatic updates can hit your pocket.
• If the patch installation process is running, the computer cannot be turned off until all operations are completed.
• If a pirated version of Windows is used on the computer, the scenario of limiting the functionality of the computer after installing the next package is real.

using administration tools

The first way to disable updates involves completely refusing them. To do this, you will need to disable the built-in Windows service.

1. Launch Control Panel.
2. Expand the "Administration" section.
3. Several items will be displayed in the window. Click on "System and Security".
4. Find “Administration” among the icons that appear on the screen.
5. Double-click the "Services" shortcut.
6. Scroll to the very end of the list.
7. Select Update Center.
8. In the window that opens, opposite “Startup type” in the drop-down list, set “Disable”.
9. Here, click on the “Stop” button.
10. Now all you have to do is click on “Apply”.

After this operation, the OS will no longer contact the Microsoft site to check and download new patches. To re-enable the service, follow the same steps, but set the Startup Type switch to Automatic and restart your computer.

Disabling automatic mode only

How to cancel Windows 7 updates that are downloaded automatically, but leave the option to install manually?

1. Launch Control Panel.
2. In the window that appears, click on the “Update Center” item.
3. Click on the "Center Setting" button. It is located on the left side of the interface.
4. Set the switch to the “Do not check” position.
5. Click "OK" at the bottom right of the window to confirm the changes.

Removing patches: preparation

If, due to the installation of a particular patch, the system begins to become unstable, it is recommended to remove the update package for Windows 7. To do this, first boot the OS in safe mode. To do this, hold down the F8 key until the BIOS information messages disappear from the screen. If pressing F8 will bring up a menu with a list in English, select Safe Mode, in Russian, respectively, “Safe Mode”.

When this approach doesn't work, try this:

1. Create an empty shortcut on your desktop.
2. In the “Object location” column, copy cmd.
3. Click on “Next” several times.
4. Now expand the shortcut context menu and select Run as administrator.
5. A command line will open, enter bcdedit /set (default) bootmenupolicy legacy.
6. All you have to do is press “ENTER”.

After this, safe mode will definitely turn on.

Removing patches using standard means

It is important that the Windows 7 update check is disabled before following the next instructions, otherwise the patches will be installed automatically again.

1. After turning on the PC, go to the “Control Panel”.
2. Click on the “Programs” line with the left mouse button.
3. Find the View Updates link in the table on the left.
4. A list of all previously installed patches will appear on the display.
5. To remove any of them, right-click on the name of the desired package, and select “Delete” in the menu that opens.

Conclusion

Any tool is good if used skillfully. Utilities built into the operating system were created to ensure computer security and user comfort. Before canceling Windows 7 updates, weigh the pros and cons. The best choice would be to disable only the automatic operating mode. At the same time, you should regularly check for patches and be sure to install those that are designed to close holes in the security of your computer. Without them, no modern antivirus or antispyware programs will be able to protect the OS.

A common problem faced by Windows 10 users is the inability to complete the operating system update. However, this problem manifests itself in two ways: “We were unable to configure Windows updates. Changes are being rolled back" or "We were unable to complete the updates. Cancel changes. Don't turn off your computer." If you encounter similar errors, you should use the following recommendations.

Cleaning the SoftwareDistribution folder as a method to solve the problem

All Windows 10 updates are downloaded to a folder located at C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download. If you clear it or rename it so that after a reboot the system creates it again and downloads updates there, the problem may be solved. However, if cleaning the directory does not help, there are some steps you should take.

If the desktop appears after rebooting the system, do the following:

• Click “Start”, “Settings”, “Update and Security”. In the menu on the left, select “Recovery” and in special boot options, click on the “Restart now” button.

• A new menu will appear. Select “Troubleshooting and Troubleshooting”. Next “Advanced options”, “Boot options” and click “Restart”. When a black screen appears, press “F4” to enter safe mode.

• Launch the command line as Administrator. Enter the following: “ren c:\windows\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old”.

• After executing the command, reboot the system.

If the computer does not boot, but constantly reboots, then you should do the following:

• We insert the disk into the drive or connect a flash drive with a Windows 10 image of the same bit depth as the installed one to the PC or laptop.
• Select the language and on the second screen at the bottom click “System Restore”. Then select “Troubleshooting”. Click "Command Line".
• On the command line enter:
• diskpart
• list vol – look at the drive letter on which the operating system is installed.
• ren c:\windows\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old.

• sc config wuauserv start=disabled – command to temporarily disable system updates.
• Close the command line. Click “Continue” and boot from the hard drive, not from the installation media.
• After loading the desktop, you should press “Win ​​+ R” and enter “services.msc”.

• Turn on “System Update Center”.

• If these steps do not help, you should perform the same steps with the recovery disk, only perform other operations on the command line, namely:
• Enter “bcdedit /set (default) safeboot minimal”.
• Reboot the PC. We log in from the hard drive.
• In safe mode, launch the command prompt with Administrator rights. Enter “msdt /id BitsDiagnostic” and then “msdt /id WindowsUpdateDiagnostic”.
• Next, disable safe mode with the command “bcdedit /deletevalue (default) safeboot” and reboot the PC.
• The problem should be fixed.

Duplicate files and inability to complete system update

If you encounter the error: “We were unable to complete the updates. Cancel changes. Do not turn off the computer”, it is worth editing the registry:

• Press “Win+R” and enter “regedit”.

• The Registry Editor will open. Find the branch “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList”.
• We look through sections with long names (we do not touch short ones). Pay attention to the “ProfileImagePath” parameter. If you find more than one partition pointing to the user's folder, then you need to delete the extra one. In this case, the one for which the parameter “RefCount = 0” will be superfluous, as well as those sections whose names end with .bak.

• Reboot the system.

For a practical solution to the problem, watch the video:

Operating system updates are necessary to keep it in optimal condition for comfortable work. In Windows 10, the update process itself requires virtually no user interaction. All important changes in the system that relate to safety or ease of use take place without the direct participation of the user. But there is a possibility of problems occurring in any process, and Windows updating is no exception. In this case, human intervention will be necessary.

Problems updating the Windows 10 operating system

A variety of problems may arise when installing updates. Some of them will be expressed in the fact that the system will immediately require updating again. In other situations, the error will interrupt the current update process or prevent it from starting. In addition, an interrupted update may even lead to undesirable consequences and require a system rollback. If your update doesn't complete, do the following:

And now that your system is safe, it’s worth finding out what was causing the problems and trying to correct the situation.

Update unavailable due to antivirus or firewall

Any installed antivirus, if configured incorrectly, can block the Windows update process. The easiest way to check is to simply disable this antivirus while checking. The process of disabling it depends on your antivirus program, but it is usually not difficult.

Almost any antivirus can be disabled via the tray menu

Disabling the firewall is another matter entirely. Of course, you shouldn’t disable it forever, but you may need to pause it to install the update correctly. To do this, do the following:

1. Press Win+X to open the Quick Access Toolbar. There, find and open the “Control Panel” item.

   Select Control Panel from the Quick Access Menu

2. Among other Control Panel items is “Windows Firewall”. Click on it to open its settings.

   Open Windows Firewall in Control Panel

3. On the left side of the window there will be various settings for this service, including the ability to disable it. Select it.

   Select "Turn Windows Firewall on or off" in its settings

4. In each section, set “Disable Firewall” and confirm the changes.

   For each network type, set the radio button to "Disable Firewall"

After disconnecting, try updating Windows 10 again. If it is successful, it means that the reason was indeed the restriction of network access for the update program.

Unable to install update due to lack of space

The update files must be downloaded to your computer before installation. Therefore, you should never fill your hard drive space to capacity. If the update was not downloaded due to lack of space, you need to free up space on your drive:

1. First of all, open the Start menu. There is a gear icon there that you need to click on.

   From the Start menu, select the gear symbol

2. Then go to the "System" section.

   In Windows Settings, open the System section

3. There, open the “Storage” tab. In "Storage" you can track how much space you have free on which disk partition. Select the partition on which you have Windows installed, because this is where updates will be installed.

   Go to the “Storage” tab in the system partition

4. You will receive detailed information about what exactly is occupied by the space on your hard drive. Review this information and scroll down the page.

   You can explore what your hard drive is doing through Storage

5. Temporary files can take up a lot of space and can be deleted directly from this menu. Select this section and click "Delete temporary files."

   Find the “Temporary files” section and delete them from “Storage”

6. Most likely, most of your space is taken up by programs or games. To remove them, select the “Programs and Features” section in the Windows 10 Control Panel.

   Select Programs and Features from Control Panel

7. Here you can select all the programs you do not need and remove them, thereby freeing up space for updating.

   Using the Uninstall or Change Programs utility, you can remove unnecessary applications

Even a major Windows 10 update shouldn't require too much free space. However, for the correct operation of all system programs, it is advisable to leave at least twenty gigabytes free on your hard or solid-state drive.

Video: instructions for clearing space on your hard drive

Windows 10 updates won't install

It's good if the cause of the problem is known. But what if the update downloads successfully but fails to install without any errors. Or even the download does not go well, but the reasons are also unclear. In this case, you should use one of the methods to correct such problems.

Fixing problems with updating through the official utility

Microsoft has developed a special program for one task - fixing any problems with Windows updates. Of course, this method cannot be called completely universal, but the utility can really help you in many cases.

To use it, do the following:

1. Open the Control Panel again and select the “Troubleshooting” section there.

   Open Troubleshooting in Control Panel

2. At the very bottom of this section you will find the option “Troubleshooting problems using Windows Update.” Click on it with the left mouse button.

   At the bottom of the Troubleshoot window, select Troubleshoot using Windows Update

3. The program itself will start. Go to the "Advanced" tab to make some settings.

   Click on the "Advanced" button on the first screen of the program

4. You should definitely choose to run with administrator rights. Without this, such a check will most likely be of no use.

   Select "Run as administrator"

5. And then press the “Next” button in the previous menu.
6. The program will automatically search for certain problems in Windows Update. The user is only required to confirm their correction in the event that a problem is actually discovered.

   Wait until the program detects certain problems

7. Once the diagnostics and corrections are completed, you will receive detailed statistics about the corrected errors in a separate window. You can close this window and after restarting the computer, try to update again.

   You can review the fixed issues in the diagnostic completion window

Manually downloading Windows 10 updates

If all your problems are related exclusively to Windows Update, then you can download the update you need yourself. There is an official update catalog specifically for this opportunity, from where you can download them:

Make sure updates are enabled on your computer

Sometimes a situation may arise that there are no problems. It's just that your computer is not configured to automatically receive updates. Check it:

Windows update version kb3213986 is not installed

Cumulative update package version kb3213986 was released in January of this year. It includes many fixes, such as:

• fixes problems connecting multiple devices to one computer;
• improves the background operation of system applications;
• eliminates many Internet problems, in particular problems with the Microsoft Edge and Microsoft Explorer browsers;
• many other fixes that improve system stability and fix bugs.

And, unfortunately, errors may also occur when installing this update package. First of all, if the installation is unsuccessful, Microsoft experts advise deleting all temporary update files and downloading them again. This is done as follows:

Another cause of problems with this update is outdated drivers. For example, an old driver for a motherboard or other hardware. To check this, you should open the “Device Manager” utility:

1. To open it, you can use the Win+R key combination and enter the command devmgtmt.msc. After that, confirm the entry and the device manager will open.

   Enter the command devmgtmt.msc into the Run window

2. In it you will immediately see devices for which drivers are not installed. They will be marked with a yellow exclamation mark or labeled as an unknown device. Be sure to install drivers for such devices.

   Select to automatically search for updated drivers in the next window

3. If a newer version is found for the driver, it will be installed. Repeat this process for each of your system devices.

After all this, try installing the update again, and if the problem was in the drivers, then you will no longer encounter this update error.

Problems with March Windows updates

March 2017 also saw some issues with updates. And if you can't install some of the versions now, check to see if they were released in March. Thus, the update to version KB4013429 may not be installed at all, and some other versions will cause errors in the operation of the browser or video playback programs. In the worst case scenario, these updates can cause serious problems with your computer.

If this happens, then you need to restore the computer. It's not that hard to do:

Your best bet is to simply not install unstable builds. There are now many versions of Windows that do not contain critical errors, and the likelihood of problems occurring during their installation is much less.

Video: Fixing various Windows 10 update errors

How to avoid problems when installing a Windows update

If you encounter problems updating frequently, then you may be doing something wrong yourself. Make sure to avoid common Windows 10 upgrade pitfalls:

Usually the cause of the problem is on the user's side. By following these simple tips, you can avoid critical situations with new Windows updates.

The Windows 10 operating system has stopped updating

After some errors appear in the update center, the operating system may refuse to update again. This means that even if you fix the cause of the problem, you will not be able to update again.

Sometimes the update error appears over and over again, preventing you from installing it

In this case, you need to use diagnostics and system file recovery. You can do this as follows:

Video: What to do if Windows 10 updates won't download

Windows 10 updates often contain important security changes for this system. Therefore, it is important to know how to install them if the automatic method fails. Knowing different ways to fix an update error will be useful to the user sooner or later. And even though Microsoft tries to make new builds of the operating system as stable as possible, the likelihood of errors remains, and accordingly, you need to know how to solve them.

Some users may encounter a situation where their operating system, for some reason, does not download system updates (both for the Windows OS itself and for its system components). This problem can have many causes, ranging from failures of the update service to lack of free space on the system disk. In this article I will tell you why Windows Update 7 does not download updates, what the problem is and how to fix it.

The essence of the problem “Windows Update 7 does not download updates”

So why doesn't Windows 7 Update download updates? The Update Center functionality may fail for the following reasons:

Having identified the reasons that cause problems with updating Windows 7, let's move on to options for solving them.

How to fix Windows Update 7 dysfunction

So, what should you do if Windows 7 Update does not download updates? I suggest following the following series of tips:

net stop wuauserv

ren %windir%\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.OLD

net start wuauserv

After executing the commands, go to the Update Center and try to update the system yourself, perhaps this will help fix the problem “Windows 7 Update does not download updates.”

What to do if Windows 7 updates are not installed

Above I described a situation in which Windows 7 Update does not download updates, the reasons for this problem and how to solve it. In this situation, first of all, you should make sure that the corresponding update service is working, and also delete the update files in the cache. If these tools do not work, you should follow the entire set of tips I described; usually one of them will effectively fix the problem with the Update Center on your PC.

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