How to Fix Windows Update When It Gets Stuck

Before anything else, restart your PC and check Windows Update again. Some updates that appear stuck are actually still running in the background — the progress bar just stops moving on screen. After a restart, Windows often continues the update automatically. If you see the update still listed, click Retry.

Go to Settings → System → Troubleshoot → Other troubleshooters → Windows Update → Run. The troubleshooter automatically detects and fixes common update problems: it resets the update service, clears the download cache, and re-registers update components. Restart after it finishes and check for updates again.

Open Command Prompt as administrator and run these commands in order:
net stop wuauserv
net stop bits
Then navigate to C:WindowsSoftwareDistributionDownload and delete all files inside that folder. Finally, run:
net start wuauserv
net start bits
This forces Windows to re-download the update files from scratch, clearing any corruption.

If a major Windows version update is stuck, download the Windows Update Assistant or the Media Creation Tool from Microsoft's official website. These tools download and apply the update directly, bypassing the built-in Windows Update mechanism entirely. This is the most reliable path when the standard update consistently fails.

Windows Update error codes like 0x80070005, 0x800f081f, or 0x8024a105 each point to a specific cause. Press Win + I → Windows Update → View update history to see the exact error code. Search that code on Microsoft's support pages to find a targeted fix — generic solutions often fail when the root cause is something specific like a missing component or a permissions issue.