I am having issues with updating a Windows 11 computer to version 24h2, and am unsure what the issues are.

Question

On Sunday or Monday night, I was prompted to update my operating system and initiated the process before going to bed. However, my computer went to sleep soon afterwards and did not finish. I think it said 30-something percent done (don’t remember what it was, it might have been downloading or something) the next time I checked, which was Tuesday evening. Over the course of Tuesday evening, it updated to 60-something percent done. The next morning, it had not made much progress, and I had to force close my computer by pressing the power button as I had a flight to catch.

Upon arrival, when I opened the computer it spent some time spinning, then booted up. I adjusted the settings to make the computer no longer go to sleep when plugged it. However, the computer appeared to be stuck on installing the update with 0% progress. I restarted the computer and then it said it was downloading the update with 0% progress again. I saw an option to pause updates, but when I tried to interact with that box, it said “You’ve reached the maximum amount of pause time. To help keep your device secure, get the latest updates - then you’ll be able to pause again), even though I have never explicitly told the computer to delay updates (did it actually just pause updates as soon as I clicked the box, without any confirmation or explanation?). After that, trying to open the update window just caused a blank window with a loading spinner to appear. After that, a “Pausing updates” notification appeared at the top, with a bar constantly pulsing from left to right.

This sequence of events may not be 100% accurate, but it is roughly what happened. What is going on? How can I complete the updating? What should I do to fix this issue? Can I just abort the update sequence somehow? I seem to have done that, but not permanently?

Regarding common troubleshooting tips, I have a good Wi-Fi connection right now, and plenty of disk space, though I am not sure about the state of my drivers (I don’t really know what those are or how to interact with them). The computer is a Lenovo IdeaPad 3 IML05 with 12 GB RAM (11.8 GB usable) and an Intel (R) i5-10210U CPU @ 1.60 GHz 2.11 GHz, whatever that means.

Answer 1

Hello

We could take the following steps to troubleshoot:

1. If there is any third party antivirus software installed, please uninstall it, reboot then upgrade again.
2. Perform a clean boot then upgrade.

How to perform a clean boot in Windows - Microsoft Support

3. Open administrator command line and run "sfc /scannow" or "dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth" to check the health of system files.
4. Unplug all the external devices before upgrade.

For advanced troubleshooting, we could check the upgrade falure log to troubleshoot. It is located in the following locations:

C:$windows.~bt\Sources\Panther

C:$windows.~bt\Sources\Rollback

Check the setuperr.log for the last error then check the setupact.log for more information. Analyzing the logs could be complex hard work.

Here is an example for reference:

Log files and resolving upgrade errors | Microsoft Learn