A failure in updating could happen when you suddenly get disconnected or downloaded corrupted data which happens a lot. And it seems that there is no local check to ensure that the file is actually complete. It just attempts to install the downloaded material even if its not complete. The stupid thing is that even though you try to update again, it just checks the cache, see that its there and won’t bother redownloading the files.
Therefore when you face such a scenario, you could take these steps to solve your problems:
- Open Command Prompt by Start -> Run and type
cmd - On the Command Prompt, type
net stop wuauserv. This is done so that you will terminate the windows automatic update service to allow us to delete the cache files - Still on the Command Prompt, type
cd /d %windir% - Type
rd /s SoftwareDistribution - Thats it, the cache has been purged. Now we need to restart the windows automatic update service again. To do that, type
net start wuauserv
September 14th, 2011 at 7:58 am
Thank you very much for your helpful suggestion that completely solved my problem. Glad I remembered how to use DOS.
September 22nd, 2012 at 7:01 am
System Error 5 shows when typing net stop wuauserv
September 24th, 2012 at 8:23 am
System Error 5 is a permission error. Make sure you are an administrator. Won’t work unless you are. If you are on win7/vista, make sure you start your command prompt by right clicking and selecting run as administrator. HTH.