Windows 10 has been trying to update for a couple of months (at least) now, with the messages of “Update Now? Pick a Time?” etc. But every time I let it try to update, it installs the updates, then restarts, then gets to 45% and gives a message of “Windows could not configure one or more components” error.
I’ve run the Windows Update troubleshooter, I have about 36 gig free on the OS drive, and I have no idea how to fix this. Ideas?
Do you have an error number or anything to narrow it down?
Maybe it’s something – a card or a USB thing – with some wonky driver support? Unplug any unnecessary stuff and see if you can get it to update itself. Then starting adding stuff back one at a time.
Could it be a corrupted download that just keeps trying to unpack?
No error number. And it’s a common question online, apparently, but the answers from MS aren’t helpful. I’ve done fresh downloads of the update. I just used the Windows Update assistant which downloaded the update fresh again, and then appeared to install the update, but when it goes to the restarts, it always gets to 45% and then gives that error.
Based on a couple of things I saw online I disabled the wifi card, after the download of course, but same results. It’s a laptop and I don’t have anything plugged into it, standard nVidia GTX 680m laptop video card.
I’m tired of trying to prevent it from updating to avoid all the time required only to have that error pop up. And I would like to actually update.
Look for ways to delete the windows download files, force everything to start fresh. Try here, maybe.
I’ll try that, thanks.
Tried deleting the updates as above and starting fresh. No joy.
Based on a lot of posts online where someone said it was their (whatever) not having Windows 10 drivers and thus they uninstalled them, I uninstalled my nVidia on board card, my sound card (this is a laptop, BTW) my SD card reader, my DVD drive, I think that’s it. Waited the forever (using the Windows 10 Update Assistant) it takes to download the updates, then the forever it takes to install them, then the reboot. Once again. during the reboot process, it gets to 45% and sits for a while then gives the Windows could not configure one or more components error.
This is ridiculous. The average person would never go through what I’m going through to try to fix this, their laptop would just reboot every day as it tried to update and then end with an error.
There should (one would hope) be installation logs somewhere which may give an indication of what exactly is causing it to shit the bed.
Is there a new version of Windows 10 you could try downloading, like the Fall Creator’s Update? Check your windows version number.
True, but rarely does the a average person use the same system that PC gamers and others use.
So - I managed to somehow get the update to take. Since my symptoms (stop at 45% with the windows could not configure one or more services" message) were so common, everyone reporting it at 45%, and MS people were recommending all kinds of weird stuff that didn’t work for anyone and then falling back to “Do a fresh Windows install” I assumed I’d never fix it. But for documentation of what worked:
(BTW - this was unscientific because I changed multiple variables at once and have no idea which was the one that fixed the problem:)
I was shocked when the update went through to 100% after months of trying everything and getting hung at 45% on restart.
Thanks to all here for their help.
My money is on the new video drivers.
Nope. There’s another Windows update, and it did the exact same thing. Downloaded fine, installed fine, then went to restart to finish the update and I got the same hangup at 45%. I asked on a MS forum and I got no real help (yes I ran the Troubleshooter, etc.) and then a guy asks me to start running all kinds of arcane cmd line statements. I asked, since I’m seeing this issue posted all over the internet - how do you expect the 90% of people who run Windows and don’t know what a command line is to ever update their computers? This issue has been reported a LOT for over a year, and you can’t fix it? ARGGG
I’m about to give up. Drives me crazy that I got this to work before, but now nothing I try works: updates download, install, etc. but on the restart, it hits 45% and stalls and then gives the unable to configure one or more components error.
I had a similar problem earlier this year where I noticed Win10 would download updates, install them, and reboot my PC. I thought everything was running fine until I realized it was downloading and try to install the same damn updates over and over again. In fact my PC had gone almost 2 months without current until I noticed what was going on.
My search led me to forum solutions but none of them worked or they involved arcane command line stuff. I finally settled on downloading the Win10 ISO utility and reinstall Win10 via USB stick with the ‘keep my data’ option. Ever since then it’s been running fine with no hangs ups with regards to downloading and installing updates automatically. I would do that to see if it fixes it.
Yeah, that’s what I was just going to suggest. Note that the “keep my data and programs” option is different than just “keep my data”. If you do the former, it keeps everything, installs Windows in a new directory, and migrates everything, just like when you do a biannual major update with a Windows.old directory and everything.
I had to do this a couple weeks ago when the entire UWP system got corrupted somehow and I was unable to run any UWP apps including the store and start menu. 45 minutes later and my computer was back to normal. I was really impressed by how well it worked. I did have to remove and reinstall a bunch of UWP apps, but that was easy.
I mean, I would have been more impressed if it didn’t break in the first place.
OK, I didn’t want to lose all of my data and programs, didn’t realize I could do this. Just downloaded the MS Media Creation Tool. First I’ll back up my drive, then I’ll try that. Thanks.
Does the Media Creation Tool also provide an option to install Windows on a different drive? Been meaning to switch to an SSD that I have and was originally going to use the Samsung utility to move everything over, but I need to reinstall Windows anyway and I believe letting Windows do that during the reinstall might be a better option.
Installing a new version of Windows does the same thing as a re-install with keep my data and programs since that’s exactly what it’s doing.
Used the Media Creation Tool to create an install system on a USB drive, then tried a Windows Install from that keeping my data and files. Looked like it was going well for about an hour, installed, then went through some reboots… and once again, got the same “Windows could not configure one or more components” error. ARGH!!!
The actual Windows install program gave this error message:
We couldn’t install Windows 10
0xc1900101 – 0x30018
The installation failed in the FIRST_BOOT phase with an error during SYSPREP operation.