Windows 10 Fix for the 80240020 error when trying to install Windows 10

kemical

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Aug 28, 2007
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This error means the download is corrupted in some way.
1. Go into "C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download" and delete everything in that folder.
2. Now, run the command prompt as an administrator. Type in "wuauclt.exe /updatenow".
3. Go to your Control Panel > Windows Update and your Windows 10 will start downloading again..
 
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There are hundreds of pages of people having difficulties. If this is the case, and you want to upgrade now, use the Media Creation Kit for Windows 10 created by Microsoft.

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Trying your fix now kemical, although I'm not giving it high hopes.
 
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Did not work,

event viewer contained:
Installation Started: Windows has started installing the following update: Upgrade to Windows 10 Home
Installation Failure: Windows failed to install the following update with error 0x80240020: Upgrade to Windows 10 Home.

windows\setupact.log contains:
2015-07-29 03:45:49, Info [0x0a018e] UI Passing command line parameter ("C:\$Windows.~BT\Sources\setup.exe /HideWelcome /uilanguage:en-US /targetlanguage:en-US") to IBS.
 
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Mike said:
There are hundreds of pages of people having difficulties. If this is the case, and you want to upgrade now, use the Media Creation Kit for Windows 10 created by Microsoft.

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Click to expand...
The above is fine if you have an activation key but i suspect many do not.... This is such a mess!
 
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I'm getting error 0x80070002 when I try to update my laptop! It keeps saying windows was unable to locate required installation file [boot.wim].

And this ^ fix never worked for me either, Anymore ideas?
 
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Didn't work for me either Paul although the site where I got it from users were having success using this method. I posted it in case it would help someone but it seems not the case so far. I'm not really sure what Microsoft have downloaded onto my machine as I can't even find the install.ESD file so something is amiss as it's not in the usual place.
 
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kemical said:
The above is fine if you have an activation key but i suspect many do not.... This is such a mess!
Click to expand...
If you are upgrading this will work. Upgrade and then make the ISO after the upgrade if you really want to clean install. (Extract the product key you are issued, after the upgrade, using Magic Jelly Bean Key finder or something of the sort)

And I agree... a disaster.
 
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I found these same instructions (I thought on here somewhere, where someone had actually posted a video) about 1:00 A.M. this morning.
So I tried it on my Windows 8.1 machine that had been continuously throwing failures in Windows Update reference updating to Windows 10.
It worked perfectly and I was done with the upgrade around 2:00 A.M.
I'd like to thank whoever it was who actually posted the video, but I can't seem to find the thread anymore.
 
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I've tried that as well as resetting the windows update using a .bat file. Both didn't work.
 
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Made an account to post this in particular.

Fix worked for me. Thank you for taking the time to post this solution, you're a legend.

Update currently 99% downloaded.

Cheers,
 
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Upgrading a Lenovo Thinkpad helix. I found this thread after an earlier forced installed failed with 80240020. Followed the tip above for deleting the download directory, but got the same failure again. However, the media creation kit link seems to be working well. Just restarted and doing the install proper now! Thanks for the info.

Will post later when the install has finished.

Chris
 
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That worked for me also - Thanks.
 
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The fix never did work for me, I'm trying to analyze this error so far I've found that for me it may have something to do with me not having a System Reserved partition, but nothing is conclusive yet. I'm trying to capture more data from the $Windows.~BT\Panther\*.log files as it will contain the true error code instead of the generic that Windows Update shows. Of course the trick is to get this log before it deletes itself and attempts to re-download and install again.
 
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So I'm also getting the WindowsUpdate_80240020 error and the deleting of whats in the download folder and using cmd to run wuauclt.exe fails for me every time. I was wanting to try and upgrade using the media creation toolkit. If I use the media create tool kit to upgrade to windows 10 will this give me a windows 10 key that I can then use to do a clean install?
 
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You don't get a Windows 10 key, you use your 7/8/8.1 key, but yes you can create a bootable DVD or USB to do a fresh install using the tool.
 
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kemical