Forum Discussion
Windows 11 Update Failed, then Windows Update failed
I was just offered the opportunity to upgrade to Windows 11 in the Release Preview Channel. I gladly accepted the offer. The upgrade downloaded, then installed (seemingly 100%), and then rebooted. Windows came back up and it looked exactly the same as before. I checked Windows Update and I was again offered the opportunity to upgrade to Windows 11. I again accepted the offer, the upgrade downloaded, and the machine rebooted. When it came back up I wasn't surprised - the machine was still a Windows 10 Pro version 21H1 (OS Build 19043.1263) machine.
I then tried a simple Windows Update, and rather than finding any updates Windows Update encountered an error. I retried finding updates many times, but I continued to get the error (0xc1900101). The option to upgrade to Windows 11 has disappeared.
I read that it might help to unplug attached devices. I did that for all but my mouse and keyboard and rebooted. Tried doing Windows Update again and got the same error (0xc1900101).
I went to the Insider Program, clicked on "Get Help," opened a chat, and then was directed to post here. Hope someone can help.
My machine is an Intel NUC with Core i7-10710 processor and 64 GB of RAM. It has Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.3920.0.
It seems that on many computers there is this problem!
Cannot install Windows 11 - Error 0xc1900101 - Microsoft Community
- Did all these things before submitting my request here.
- This seems to be the only solution ever offered. I have another machine that had the exact same issue with updates. I decided to retire that machine after getting the same "advice" here.
- Hey I dunno if youve fixed this or not however you need to run the check for updates after the reboot and win 11 should download. This is done after your enrollment and reboot
- To my knowledge there has been no event to cause system files to become corrupt, unless the Windows 11 upgrade did the corrupting. Updates worked fine before I accepted the upgrade offer. The system (other than Windows update) works flawlessly. If I am forced to do a clean install can I do that with Windows 11 directly? I was not given installation media when I bought my computer.
- Enrolled months ago. Win 11 downloads (at least it says it has) and installs (again, it says it has) and then asks to reboot, which I do, and when it comes back up nothing was done - and there's no error message. Running update now simply shows the update error I have mentioned here.
- I feel as You might want to decrypt the entire drive and make sure you don't have a locked drive partition.
Elevated PowerShell: Manage-bde --status
Here's a possible explanation of what I've been experiencing. As those who have been following this discussion know, after attempting to upgrade to Windows 11 under the Release Preview Channel of Windows Insider (an opportunity that I was offered in Windows Update and which also appeared in notifications) I was unable to achieve any result, and thereafter I got errors when trying to use Windows Update. I decided to drop out of the Windows Insider program temporarily. I rebooted and voila! Windows Update was again available. I re-joined the Release Preview Channel of Windows Insider, rebooted, and updates were still available and (at least as of now) I am not offered the chance to upgrade to Windows 11. Perhaps Microsoft invited my upgrade prematurely?
I just ran the Windows Update and got the attached file. Dare I do this again? (I've seen this same upgrade offer many, many times now, and running it will likely cause errors in my getting future non-upgrade updates.)
- Sounds like everyone's stumped. A relatively new, high end machine, running well (with this one exception), with updated drivers and bios, cannot receive an update that is offered by Windows update.... Something's wrong here. Isn't there some way to determine what is causing this?
Haven't given up yet. Tried doing a Diagnostic Startup (using msconfig) and elimination of all but MS programs from startup (using task manager) - just to see if there might be some installed program that was interfering with the installation. Remember, I've run sfc /scannow several times now and all's well there. When done disabling startup programs, I rebooted and then went to Windows Update and again tried to upgrade to Windows 11. As it rebooted I watched "installing updates" immediately jump from 0% to 77%, then it restarted. On the way back up, it again reported installing updates. I got to the deesktop and - yes, unfortunately, nothing changed. No error message. Windows update still asks if I want to upgrade to Windows 11. Again, a total waste of time. I'll attach a couple screen-shots here.
As I said, I haven't given up yet. I used Rufus (as recommended at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-insider/ISOs) to set up a bootable USB drive using the Windows 10 ISO file provided at the Windows Insider site for the Release Preview Channel. I ran the setup from that USB drive and re-installed the latest version of Windows 10. After completion, my OS Build went from 19043.1263 to 19044.1263. I ran Windows Update and was surprised to see yet another Update was available. I installed it, and now I have a completely up-to-date Windows 10 machine that is enrolled in the Release Preview Channel and which is not being offered the upgrade to Windows 11 (at least not yet). Something tells me that this is precisely where I should have been all along. We'll see.
- Just got a request from Microsoft Tech Community: "Did it solve your problem? Mark one as an Accepted Solution." Please don't take this the wrong way - I sincerely appreciate the advice given here. But the answer, unfortunately, is "No." I'll just have to live with the situation until an edition of Windows 11 is made available in ISO format for the Release Preview Channel.
- Does anyone here know when the ISO for Windows 11 will be available for those on the Release Preview Channel?
It would be great if this installation was successful!
This is the stable version of Windows11.
