I have been trying to download the Windows 8.1 Pro Preview since it came out last Wednesday (the 26th), but I've been having several issues.
First and most importantly, no matter how long I leave the download running it never goes past 44%. I have a slow internet connection so I expect large things like that to take a while, but after leaving it for 8 hours it was at 44%. Leaving it overnight did not help and it was still at 44% when I woke up. The Windows store still reports that the update is "Downloading" but not progress is ever made. If I try to pause, then resume the download it starts over from zero.
Second, if the Windows Store lost focus for any reason, the download would switch to "Pending" and never resume downloading. This would happen even if my computer went to sleep, so I started changing the power settings when I was attempting to get the update.
The only solution I can think of is that the update is sitting somewhere on my computer 44% complete and interfering with any attempts to retry the download. That's for my first problem at least. I just assume that the Windows Store being poorly written is the cause of the second problem, though I could more than likely be wrong.
Has anyone run into similar problems, and if so how did you fix them?
Best Answer
Download the ISO from MS page:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/preview-iso
mount the ISO, run the setup.exe and select "upgrade".