Windows Update Down

[Newtun]

A few weeks ago, I started having a problem with Windows Update on my one Win PC. The periodic check says:


But on "patch Tuesdays", when I click "Check for updates", it gives an error:



Retry or rebooting doesn't help. I tried the Troubleshoot "advanced Windows Update" tool to fix it, but it doesn't find any problems.

I tried googling for the problem, and got a couple of links:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...e-update-400faa27-9343-461c-ada9-24c8229763bf

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...80070643/745e0b71-f479-44e6-bb3e-47093c5aa5eb

Neither of those solved the problem.

I know I can't update to Win 11, but I was hoping to get a little more time in Windows on this PC before I upgrade it to Ubuntu.

I don't use it a lot, but I do have a VM running PiHole there for my little home network. And I like the very useful CanoScan Toolbox for my old LIDE 60 scanner, so I can pick the output - direct printing, JPEG, PDF, etc.

I would welcome any suggestions to fix it.

Thanks!

 

[LunarMist]

I've been getting an error for the below update only one every system I have with Win 10. All the other updates are working. I have no idea why and do not care to investigate. Are you able to do other updates?

2024-01 Security Update for Windows 10 Version 22H2 for x64-based Systems (KB5034441)
Status: Download error - 0x80070643

 

[Newtun]

It does appear that I get other updates installed, such as Windows Defender definition-files.

 

[LunarMist]

KB5034441: Windows Recovery Environment update for Windows 10, version 21H2 and 22H2: January 9, 2024 - Microsoft Support

support.microsoft.com

Symptom	Next step

When you try to apply this update on a PC that has no recovery partition, the update is unsuccessful and you receive the error 0x80070643 ERROR_INSTALL_FAILURE.

You do not need this update if the PC does not have a recovery partition. In this case, the error can be safely ignored. We are working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release.

I believe the issue for me is that I generally delete the recovery partition as it is noxious and I use Macriums for any recovery of the C: drive including the EFI partition. I hope they eliminate the error message soon.

 

[Mercutio]

A tool I use when I run across systems with update issues is WSUSOffline. You can run it and dump all the updates for whatever combination of OS, platform and architecture(s) you like. I keep the files on a flash drive. Since the files then execute locally, I typically run in to fewer issues and it's great for the day you find a notebook that hasn't seen a completed update since 2018.

 

[Newtun]

Thanks, Lunar and Merc, for your responses.

I did remove the recovery partition(s!). That was from the first link I included. When I went in to look at the partitioning, there were 3 "recovery partitions", including a tiny one that I first removed. Then after that and the other link didn't fix the problem, I removed the other two.

I hope that Next step will be resolved by MS.

 

[Mercutio]

This isn't entirely relevant to your issue but the Sergei Strelec Boot Media you can find on MajorGeeks.com includes a tool that will re-write a Windows EFI partition and another to edit Boot entries on Windows if for example you wind up wanting to revert back from using Grub as your primary boot loader.

If you're messing around by deleting partitions and recreating them, these are also good things to know exist.

 

[LunarMist]

Thanks, Lunar and Merc, for your responses.

I did remove the recovery partition(s!). That was from the first link I included. When I went in to look at the partitioning, there were 3 "recovery partitions", including a tiny one that I first removed. Then after that and the other link didn't fix the problem, I removed the other two.

I hope that Next step will be resolved by MS.

I was still waiting for MS to fix bugs in XP64 well after it was obsolete.
Maybe they will just tell us to use Win 12 if that comes out when 10 is delinquent in Oct 2025.

 

[LunarMist]

Microsoft won't be fixing Windows Recovery Environment error

Need a bigger partition for the update? You'll be manually resizing it then

www.theregister.com

TL;DR MS is not going to fix that bug.

 

[sedrosken]

If they can't drive Windows 11 adoption the normal way, they'll just break what you already have and then not fix it. Go figure.

 

[LunarMist]

The problem is that they are still not getting the point that many people don't want a silly recovery partition and just don't want the error message.

 

[ddrueding]

I feel that they are just slowly finding ways to:

1. Make it a service
2. Collect as much data as possible

 

[LunarMist]

I feel that they are just slowly finding ways to:

1. Make it a service
2. Collect as much data as possible

Like Windows 11 Recall feature?

 

[Santilli]

A tool I use when I run across systems with update issues is WSUSOffline. You can run it and dump all the updates for whatever combination of OS, platform and architecture(s) you like. I keep the files on a flash drive. Since the files then execute locally, I typically run in to fewer issues and it's great for the day you find a notebook that hasn't seen a completed update since 2018.

Hi M
What does this do, exactly?
I have a system that won't update, as well.

 

[ddrueding]

Like Windows 11 Recall feature?

I feel like that is more like another worrying trend. Make the user the product by selling their data instead of taking money from them.

 

[Mercutio]

Hi M
What does this do, exactly?
I have a system that won't update, as well.

It's exactly what it says on the label: It downloads the individual Windows updates for a given platform and stores them locally, so that they can be executed individually on the client instead of trusting Windows automatic updates to do whatever it's going to do. There's a downloader executable that gives users the option to pick what you want to store and keep and for which OS/CPU architecture/version number and there is a client executable that runs the updates sequentially on PC.

If Windows update consistently fails for bullshit reasons, it's something I will definitely try in order to get a computer back on track. I have a co-worker (retiring in a week! WOOOOO!) who will do everything in her power to not update any software ever, up to and including blocking group policy inheritance, which I was actually shocked that she actually figured out on her own. She's the main reason I am familiar with WSUSoffline.

I feel like that is more like another worrying trend. Make the user the product by selling their data instead of taking money from them.

You KNOW there will be a techie way to turn that shit off even if they don't give end users control over it.
It'll just be one more thing like suggestions in the start menu, notifications in web browsers and targeted advertising.

I will say that Copilot has about a 66% hit rate for writing functional powershell scripts for me and about a 90% hit rate for updating VB.net to work-alike C#. I still have to know what's going on to debug it if it doesn't work, but it's been a big time saver.

 

[Santilli]

Thanks M
"There's a downloader executable that gives users the option to pick what you want to store and keep and for which OS/CPU architecture/version number and there is a client executable that runs the updates sequentially on PC."
Where do I find the above?

 

[Mercutio]

WSUS Offline Update - Update Microsoft Windows and Office without an Internet connection

After it's downloaded and set up, they're there in the installation folder. It should be self explanatory.

 

[LunarMist]

I don't see that tool helping for the titled issue.

 

[Mercutio]

I don't see that tool helping for the titled issue.

That is a failure on your part, because it most assuredly does.

 

[Santilli]

Thanks M
It's running right now.
It's been a long time since updates worked...

 

[sedrosken]

Merc, I've had lots of success getting stuff that's complaining about updates set to rights just by killing wuauserv and deleting the entirety of the DataStore and Download folders under C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution and then trying the update again. Have you had a case in recent memory where that hasn't been sufficient? I'm wondering how much more broken I should expect things to be in the future.

 

[Mercutio]

Merc, I've had lots of success getting stuff that's complaining about updates set to rights just by killing wuauserv and deleting the entirety of the DataStore and Download folders under C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution and then trying the update again. Have you had a case in recent memory where that hasn't been sufficient? I'm wondering how much more broken I should expect things to be in the future.

I usually try the offline updater before I take that step, because I most assuredly have it on a flash drive if not running on something-or-other on whatever LAN I happen to be using. It's been months since I've had to nuke a SoftwareDistribution folder. This might be a case where there are multiple ways to solve the same problem.

 

[LunarMist]

That is a failure on your part, because it most assuredly does.

After updating Win 10 and running that funky software that downloaded 20+GB of files, the same old error reported by Newtun occurs, i.e., 0x80070643.
I'm sure that the 3rd party software has some uses, but it does nothing for the error that was the initial point of the thread.

 

[Mercutio]

After updating Win 10 and running that funky software that downloaded 20+GB of files, the same old error reported by Newtun occurs, i.e., 0x80070643.
I'm sure that the 3rd party software has some uses, but it does nothing for the error that was the initial point of the thread.

The problem with that particular bug is that Windows doesn't quite come equipped with tools to fix it. It should; we can in theory re-size partitions in Disk Management, but doing so depends on how OEMs decided to create partition layouts and resizing partitions is a big hairy problem, as is the possibility that an end user's primary disk partition might be too full to even allow itself to be re-sized.

I think Microsoft looked at it and realized that the possibility of causing data loss was too high to issue an automated fix. It's do-able and even scriptable, but it should probably be examined first-hand by someone who knows enough about what's going on. Here's Microsoft's own step-by step remediation. You basically add 150MB to the size of the recovery partition.

 

[LunarMist]

But I don't want a stupid recovery partition where I have no control over the contents. If there is no recovery partition, there should be no error message. Acronis, Macrium, etc., are for restoring the disk images.

 

[sedrosken]

Well too bad. Microsoft says you get one anyway. They can't seem to decide what size it should be, though.

 

[LunarMist]

Does APPLE do the same stuff with their parturitions?

 

[Mercutio]

Does APPLE do the same stuff with their parturitions?

MacOS is a commercial Unix. Partition assignments can be much more flexible but OS recovery can also be more obnoxious. For example you can connect one Mac to another and just treat that second system as a disk drive, but the pain point is that in many cases you need a Mac to fix a Mac, and unless you have a long history with Apple, you may not be able to download disc images for older releases of its OS. Yes, there are people who have magic links to get the disk images from Apple's web site, but Apple tells you to download through the App Store and only shows you releases you've installed on Macs via your Apple ID.

From a computer fixing standpoint, it is very handy to have a second bootable Windows OS on a Windows PC for recovery operations, even if I generally use a different set of tools 95% of the time. I would never tell anyone to remove their recovery partition.

 

[Newtun]

This past Patch Tuesday, my original Win Up problem, above, had gone away:

​

Finally, after about 5 months! I've retried Check for Updates over the past few days, and it's still working okay.

 

[LunarMist]

Thanks. It works. I've restored and updated so many Win 10 C:s lately that I did not notice.
The particular system has a C: in front of the 100MB EFI and then a data parturtition. It has no silly restore partuition.