I found the solution:
https://www.reddit.com/r/windowsinsiders/comments/1cldqzq/fix_for_anybody_who_is_stuck_on_26040/Here is copy-pasta in case I violated a rule in subreddit and it gets removed, excuse the formatting:
I have found a fix after more than 12h of trying different things. I shall copy paste this message to increase visibility.
(optional) Things that I had set in my PC but I don't think are relevant:
(yet if following steps below still fail, try setting these before doing them)
Go to Settings --> System --> Advanced System Settings --> Hardware Tab --> Device Installation Settings --> Select No. (this will prevent driver automatic reinstall for the next point)
Right Click on Windows icon --> Device Manager --> DIsplay Adapter --> right click AMD Radeon Graphics, uninstall it along with drivers. (this will revert you to windows base display driver).
Steps for the actual solution that worked for me:
Go in your command line and run following command:
DISM /online /get-intl
This will tell you what language pack you have, pay attention to the top one, if it's en-US or another language locale. Knowing this, will save you a lot of time.
See which update you are failing by going to Settings --> Updates --> See which version it is trying to install. For me it was 26058.
We will download ISO of this version and not try to skip it like some solutions suggest. If you try to skip it with another version, like one from Dev channel or newer Canary one, you may encounter getting stuck at downloading/installing 0% for which I never found solution.
Go to UUPDUMP (
https://uupdump.net/known.php) and find that failing version there. Since the common failing version is 26058, link is here:
https://uupdump.net/selectlang.php?id=f56be8e8-76bd-4c9b-8be7-8c05b6f98815Select all that apply to your copy (Pro edition, language locale based on step 1, include all editions if you're not sure what's your edition, convert to ISO)
Download it.
Unzip it.
Run uup_download_windows.cmd - it will take a while and consume about 4-5GB of your network data).
Let it finish and generate ISO file in same folder, named something like "26058.1000.240209-1555.GE_RELEASE_CLIENTPRO_OEMRET_X64FRE_EN-US.ISO"
Note: we will not use the latest insider build available on insider page as it skips the failing version and failed for me. You are free to try it. But UUPDUMP is legit source for images.
Double click the ISO file from step 3.5. - you can unzip it with Winrar or mount it with WinCDEmu - I mounted it to a virtual drive using WinCDEmu but it should make no difference.
Open Command Line or Powershell as administrator (Right click Windows Icon --> Terminal (Admin) --> Yes)
Navigate to folder/drive you extracted/loaded your image to by using
CD H:\iso-image
Replace H:\iso-image with location of your extracted/mounted iso image
Run following command
.\setup.exe /auto upgrade /dynamicupdate disable /migratedrivers none
I don't recall what the options meant anymore but simply clicking exe file wouldn't work.
Setup window should open, once you agree on terms and conditions, you should directly be taken to big blue screen saying "Installing Windows 11" and progress should be going and not stuck at 0%.
If you instead are taken to window where you can choose between three options: Keep personal files and apps, keep only personal files and nothing, and the first option is greyed out, check the message at the bottom of the window. It may say either language of the pack is different or that install directory is incorrect. For language, you may have downloaded the wrong language pack and you need to regenerate a new ISO with correct language (see step 3.1.).. If it's directory, then either you got older version (double check the numbers) or you have put some windows linked user files to another Drive - migrate those back to main drive.
If Installing is stuck at 0% for extended period of time. Restart the computer and clear update cache with following commands (from Command Prompt and not Powershell) and try again.
cd C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\
net stop wuauserv
net stop bits
del /f /s /q *.*
net start wuauserv
net start bits
Once it reaches 100%, it will restart and behold how the boot spinner doesn't get frozen and it gets updated.
Once on new version, you can reenable any settings you may have set (like what I did with drivers) and update normally to newest version.
Play around with resetting update cache at any point if things get frozen in download/install steps. There are also longer list of commands I ran but I don't think those helped me more than the few I mention up there. Nevertheless, here are longer list of commands I ran occasionally to reset update cache:
net stop wuauserv
net stop cryptSvc
net stop bits
net stop msiserver
ren C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old
ren C:\Windows\System32\catroot2 catroot2.old
net start wuauserv
net start cryptSvc
net start bits
net start msiserver
net stop bits
net stop cryptsvc
net stop wuauserv
net stop appidsvc
net stop cryptsvc
net stop wscsvc
ren C:\Windows\System32\catroot2 catroot2.old
ren C:\Windows\System32\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old
ren C:\Windows\System32\appmgmt appmgmt.old
net start bits
net start cryptsvc
net start wuauserv
net start appidsvc
net start cryptsvc
net start wscsvc
I hope this helps more than some of the official responses of "you just have to wait until MS fixes it"
