I had installed a Windows 10 64-bit version 1511 on my laptop. After completing the necessary steps, it started downloading updates. After some time I could see that 40GB in my Windows drive was full and so many updates were installed.
But there was this update "Windows feature update 1803", it was downloading. The problem is that it has been three days that my system downloads this update, try to install it, but then start downloading again and start installing again. It hasn't been able to completely update my windows version and this update still shows, sometimes downloading, and sometimes installing, but can do nothing else. I have given it fixed 2MB Internet, and I keep it running until it restarts itself.
Please, help.. is there anything I am missing here, or there is something else that I need to. I want to update my windows to the latest version.
Note: my windows (1511) is authentic, activated, though I got that window 2 or 3 years ago.
Best Answer
I recently had the same issue. Except I was actually using 1507. In my case, the installation was actually a virtual machine. In my case, the installation was an Insider Preview build based on my notes, that was later upgraded to the final build (RTM) 10240 at some point.
I decided that it was time to update this machine, I spent the better part of a day attempting various methods to upgrade it one of the more recent Windows 10 versions, but each time I would receive an error.
This error message was only being displayed when I attempted to either use the current Upgrade Assistant and/or the Media Creation Tool. When Windows Update attempted to install the feature update it would fail silently. The machine would go through the process, reboot several times, and then suddenly start to roll the changes back. So unless you watched the entire process you would miss what was happening (which is exactly what I was not doing).
The only way I have found to upgrade older Windows 10 installations that are NOT on a build that is currently supported (1507,1511,1607,1703,1709) is to upgrade to each of those versions before attempting to upgrade to (1803,1809, and 1903). Feature updates are only supported for 18 months, I have found any installation on an unsupported build, actually has problems getting updates. This can be mitigated by keeping the system current with updates (security updates are released for all versions), but the Windows Catalog, does not archive updates forever. It appears updates have a limited lifespan around 18 months, so updates for 1507 could not be downloaded, as they had already been removed.
I suspect I was receiving the error for several reasons. The entire feature updates upgrade process has received improvements in the last 12 months. So I suspecting attempting to upgrade from 1507 and/or 1511 to one of the builds after that improvement is not supported.
It also based on the fact the tools that can diagnose the upgrade process itself is likely also untested on systems upgraded from older feature updates to newer updates. I used SetupDiag to diagnose the issue. The documentation on the error codes appear to have been updated, I suspect the tool only supports updates after the upgrade improvements, because while the tool did parse the reason for the failure the documentation for the error did not seem to properly explain the failure.
I had to upgrade the machine to 1511, 1607, and finally 1703 before it successfully upgraded itself to 1803. After it upgraded itself to 1703 (from 1603) it installed 1703 patches from 2018 automatically. At this time it has not attempted to install any of patches released in the last 7 months for 1703.
In my original attempts I attempted to use WSUS Offline, but that tool downloads catalog files and depending on how long you went without updates it, the updates might have been already removed from the catalog. Additionally, it appears WSUS Offline, only supports the supported feature updates (1803, 1809, 1903). It appears WSUS Offline will only ever support upgrading the feature updates that exist within the SAC (Semi-Annual Channel).
Sources:
Windows 10 release information
Windows Update for Business and the retirement of SAC-T