I just upgraded from 8 to 8.1 and immediately tried upgrading to windows 10. I got this same error so I killed the process and retried and restarted my computer a few times.
I turned off automatic updates thinking maybe I was getting the issue where it shows 0% because an automatic update is already in progress. Still nothing. It's just sitting there.
*side note - it won't let me close it unless i end process from task manager.
I tried a lot of guides from internet to solve this "0% download progress" problem, but without success. What worked for me finally?
- Download Media Creation Tool from Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows10
- run it and select "Upgrade this computer" (or you can select "create installable media" (DVD / USB) if you want to make clean installation, but it wasn't my case) - download will start immediately
- if you get stuck during installation (after downloading) on "checking for updates" message, then open Command prompt as administrator (how to do it) - while installation window 10 is still open and running - and type command:
net stop wuauserv. This stops windows update service. After a minute you should see "Checking computer" instead of "checking for updates" in Windows install window and installation goes on...- if you get stuck again during next "checking for updates" process, repeat the last step - stop windows update with
net stop wuauserv. I had to do it two or three times during "checking for updates".
For anyone else who has this problem here is how I solved it.
First off the whole process was a nightmare. Just letting you know.
I tried a lot of things and it eventually worked. I'm going to list everything I did but my suspicion is the most important thing I did was frequent disk cleanups.
Instead of trying to straight update to windows 10 I updated 8.1 as much as it would let me. I had my HDD partitioned and the C drive only had 150 GB so after a billion windows update failures I figured maybe it would at least speed things up if I reclaimed the other partition. It was during this process that I did a disk cleanup (Had to click on advanced so it would search for more things to delete (e.g. windows update files)). After this windows update FINALLY worked.
If you get it downloaded and it freezes on preparing to install I'd try disk cleanup again and start over.
That was a 657MB download. The next windows update was a 15MB download. This took half a day. By the time it worked I had:
I continued updating until it said I had no more updates to do (even optional). For me this was just another 85 MB update and it worked flawlessly. I never saw that update to windows 10 thing in the taskbar. I just googled "install windows 10" and clicked through the links once it was fully updated and to my surprise it worked (this was a 2 day ordeal).
One final thing to point out is that windows update is garbage. It will sit at "preparing to install" forever. It will download 700MB but leave it's download progress at 0%. It might not let you close it. It might not open when you open it. When I was upgrading from 8 to 8.1 it froze at 62% (permanently froze) and after some googling I found it will start again if you disconnect your internet and then reconnect it.
Check whether the Windows date and Time is set to Automatic and the System Locale to English. Then try to use the Troubleshooter and see if it helps.
This issue might also occur due to corruption in Windows Update component files. I suggest you to reset Windows Update component. Press Windows key + X, select Command prompt (Admin) to bring up elevated Command prompt. Stop the BITS service, the Windows Update service, and the Cryptographic service. To do this, at a command prompt, type the following commands. Make sure that you press Enter after you type each command.
net stop bits
net stop wuauserv
net stop appidsvc
net stop cryptsvc
Rename the software distribution folders backup copies. To do this, at a command prompt, type the following commands. Make sure that you press Enter after you type each command.
Ren %systemroot%\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.bak
Ren %systemroot%\system32\catroot2 catroot2.bak
Restart the BITS service, the Windows Update service, and the Cryptographic service. To do this, at a command prompt, type the following commands. Make sure that you press Enter after you type each command.
net start bits
net start wuauserv
net start appidsvc
net start cryptsvc
5. Restart your PC and check if it works this time when you try to update.
Type services.msc in run box and open services.msc
Scroll down and find the entry named Windows update. You need to stop this service. For that, simply right click on Windows update and then click on Stop
browse to the following location and delete all files
C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution
Go to services and start back Windows update
Now start the update process once again.
It sounds like there are a variety of sources for this problem. I'm using Win7 trying to create a USB key for later installation of other machines (Win10, 64-bit, US). Multiple close pgm and re-running had no effect, nor did leaving it open for hours; the 0% status would not change.
Restarting the bits service (only) was sufficient (while stuck at 0%), and simple and safe enough for a good first attempt. As others mention, you must run the command-line as administrator, else you will get an insufficient rights error message on the net stop command.
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
11:55:19.39>net stop bits
The Background Intelligent Transfer Service service is stopping..
The Background Intelligent Transfer Service service was stopped successfully.
11:55:26.45>net start bits
The Background Intelligent Transfer Service service is starting.
The Background Intelligent Transfer Service service was started successfully.
Also available through Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Services | Background Intelligent Transfer Service | Properties
For me it helped to run the upgrade assistant or media creation tool from an administrator account (you have to run it from the account not just run as administrator).
I had this problem with multiple machines. Ended the GPupdate process solved the issue.
gpupdate will solve some permission issues.
Jul 6, 2018 at 11:03
First do this before anything else:
Restart your network connection.
Most laptops have a button that switches on/off WiFi. Otherwise go into "Network and Sharing Centre" -> "Change Adapter Settings" and disable, then enable your active network adapter.
This worked for me, and it's quick to try before you move on to the more involved solutions.
If you are in 2017 still having issues with the media creation tool, I've just decided to ran away from it, and instead of following the stupidest tool ever made by microsoft which didn't work in TEN different laptops whatsoever, I've just found out that you can directly download the windows 10 ISO from the microsoft website (so why making a tool which works with just some very specific versions of windows with some very specific updates with a perfectly working OS anyway?):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO/
Just choose the version, the architecture and, finally, the language.
Once you've downloaded the iso, just burn it on an USB drive or something else using whatever you want (like rufus).
I got stuck several time during the upgrade. I just had to stop the Windows update service (wait for it to stop) then start again. (You can right click on the service to stop/start) source
