Manually clearing the windows 10 update cache will resolve most issues you might be having installing the latest windows 10 updates on your machine.
In this guide I will show to step by step how to easily clear the windows 10 update cache from your machine.
Why do we need to clear the cache? If you are having issues running windows update and you get an error similar to the one above (Or one in this article Windows Update Components Must Be Repaired ) it is most likely due to an issue with an update file, Either that file was not fully downloaded or has become corrupt. I will show you how to resolve this issue in the steps below.
How To Manually Clear The Windows 10 Update Cache
To manually clear down the windows 10 update cache follow these steps.
- Click start, type in “File Explorer” and left click on file explorer
- Right click on “Local Disk (C:)” then left click properties
- On the next windows click on “Disk Clean-up”
- Next click on “Clean up system files”
- Make sure you tick the boxes next to “Windows upgrade log files” and “Temporary Windows Installation files” then click on OK. Your system will now remove these files from your machine.
- Now click start and type in services and then left click on services application.
- Scroll down and right click on Windows Update and click stop. Wait for the service to stop which usually takes less than a minute
- Now open file explorer again and browse to C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution
- Now right click on the download folder and select delete, Hit Yes if you are prompted
- Reboot your machine
We have now managed to manually cleare the windows 10 update cache, Run windows update again to see if your issue is now resolved.
How To Clear The Windows Update Cache In Windows 10 Via Command Prompt
Another way you can clear down windows 10 updates is via the command prompt.
To Clear The Windows Update Cache In Windows 10 Via Command Prompt follow these steps.
- Click start, type in CMD then right click on “Command Prompt” and select run as administrator
- If prompted by UAC click YES
- In the command prompt window type in net stop wuauserv then hit enter (This will stop the windows 10 update application on your machine)
- Type C: and hit enter
- Type cd %Windir%\SoftwareDistribution and hit enter
- Type del /f /s /q Download and hit enter
- All of the windows 10 cache files on your machine will now be deleted
- Restart your machine
How To Clear Windows Update Cache With a Script
To create a script to clear down the windows update cache follow these steps
- Open notepad
- Insert the below code in bold
@Echo On
net stop wuauserv
C:
cd %Windir%\SoftwareDistribution
Type del /f /s /q Download
pause - Save the file as Cleardown.cmd on your desktop
- Right click on the Cleardown.cmd file and select run as administrator
- When the script has finished it will pause so you can see the output of what it has done
How To Reset Windows Update Components In Windows 10
If the above solutions did not fix your issue you can try to reset the windows update components.
To Reset Windows Update Components In Windows 10 follow these steps
- Click start, type in CMD then right click on “Command Prompt” and select run as administrator
- If prompted by UAC click YES
- In the command prompt window type in the following commands one by one
net stop wuauserv
net stop cryptSvc
net stop bits
net stop msiserver - Next run the following commands
ren C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old
ren C:\Windows\System32\catroot2 Catroot2.old - Now restart your computer
Register BITS and Windows Update .dll Files
It is also a good idea to re-register windows 10 bits and windows update .dll file. To do this follow these steps
- Click start, type in CMD then right click on “Command Prompt” and select run as administrator
- If prompted by UAC click YES
- In the command prompt window type in the following commands one by one
cd /d %windir%\system32
regsvr32.exe /s atl.dll
regsvr32.exe /s urlmon.dll
regsvr32.exe /s mshtml.dll
regsvr32.exe /s shdocvw.dll
regsvr32.exe /s browseui.dll
regsvr32.exe /s jscript.dll
regsvr32.exe /s vbscript.dll
regsvr32.exe /s scrrun.dll
regsvr32.exe /s msxml3.dll
regsvr32.exe /s msxml6.dll
regsvr32.exe /s actxprxy.dll
regsvr32.exe /s softpub.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wintrust.dll
regsvr32.exe /s dssenh.dll
regsvr32.exe /s rsaenh.dll
regsvr32.exe /s cryptdlg.dll
regsvr32.exe /s oleaut32.dll
regsvr32.exe /s ole32.dll
regsvr32.exe /s shell32.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wuapi.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wuaueng.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wups.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wups2.dll
regsvr32.exe /s qmgr.dll
regsvr32.exe /s wudriver.dll - Restart your machine
Where is the windows update cache location in windows 10? The windows 10 windows update cache location is C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download. All of the install files for windows updates are stored here.
It is very important to clear down this folder every few months as it can grow very large over time.