How to download updates that include drivers and hotfixes from the Windows Update Catalog

This article discusses how to download updates from the Windows Update Catalog.

Original product version: В Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 10 — all editions
Original KB number: В 323166

Introduction

The Windows Update Catalog offers updates for all operating systems that we currently support. These updates include the following:

• Device drivers
• Hotfixes
• Updated system files
• New Windows features

We guide you through the steps to search the Windows Update Catalog to find the updates that you want. Then, you can download the updates to install them across your home or corporate network of Microsoft Windows-based computers.

We also discuss how IT Professionals can use Software Update Services, such as Windows Update and Automatic Updates.

This content is designed for an advanced computer user. We recommend that only advanced users and administrators download updates from the Windows Update Catalog. If you are not an advanced user or an administrator, visit the following Microsoft Web site to download updates directly:
Windows Update: FAQ

Steps to download updates from the Windows Update Catalog

To download updates from the Windows Update Catalog, follow these steps:

Step 1: Access the Windows Update Catalog

To access the Windows Update Catalog, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
Windows Update Catalog

To view a list of frequently asked questions about Windows Update Catalog, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
Microsoft Update Catalog Frequently Asked Questions

Step 2: Search for updates from the Windows Update Catalog

To search for updates from the Windows Update Catalog, follow these steps:

1. In the Search text box, type your search terms. For example, you might type Windows Vista Security.
2. Click Search, or press Enter.
3. Browse the list that is displayed to select the updates that you want to download.
4. Click Download to download the updates.
5. To search for additional updates to download, repeat steps 2a through 2d.

Step 3: Download updates

To download updates from the Windows Update Catalog, follow these steps:

Click the Download button under Search box.

Click the updates link on the pop-up page and Save to the default path, or right-click the link and select Save target as to the specified path. You can either type the full path of the folder, or you can click Browse to locate the folder.

Close the Download and the Windows Update Catalog Window.

Find the location that you specified in step 3b.

If you have downloaded device drivers for installation, go to «Installing Drivers.»

Double-click each update, and then follow the instructions to install the update. If the updates are intended for another computer, copy the updates to that computer, and then double-click the updates to install them.

If all the items that you added to the download list are installed successfully, you are finished.

If you want to learn about additional update services, please see the «Software Update Services for IT Professionals» section.

Installing drivers

Open a command prompt from the Start menu.

To extract the driver files, type the following command at the command prompt, and then press Enter:

To stage the driver for plug and play installation or for the Add Printer Wizard, use PnPutil Software Update Services for IT Professionals.

To install a cross-architecture print driver, you must already have installed the local architecture driver, and you will still need the cross-architecture copy of Ntprint.inf from another system.

Software Update Services for IT Professionals

For general information about Software Update Services, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
Overview of Windows as a service

Windows Update

IT Professionals can use the Windows Update service to configure a server on their corporate network to provide updates to corporate servers and clients. This functionality can be useful in environments where some clients and servers do not have access to the Internet. This functionality can also be useful where the environment is highly managed, and the corporate administrator must test the updates before they are deployed.

For information about using Windows Update, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
Windows Update: FAQ

Automatic Updates

IT Professionals can use the Automatic Updates service to keep computers up to date with the latest critical updates from a corporate server that is running Software Update Services.

Automatic Updates works with the following computers:

• Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
• Windows 2000 Server
• Windows 2000 Advanced Server (Service Pack 2 or later versions)
• Windows XP Professional
• Windows XP Home Edition computer

For more information about how to use Automatic Updates in Windows XP, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
306525 How to configure and use Automatic Updates in Windows XP

Troubleshooting

You may experience one or more of the following issues when you use Windows Update or Microsoft Update:

You may receive the following error message:

Software update incomplete, this Windows Update software did not update successfully.

You may receive the following error message:

Administrators Only (-2146828218) To install items from Windows Update, you must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also prevent you from completing this procedure.

For more information about this issue, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 316524 You receive an «Administrators only» error message when you try to visit the Windows Update Web site or the Microsoft Update Web site

You may be unable to view the Windows Update site or the Microsoft Update site if you connect to the Web site through an authenticating Web proxy that uses integrated (NTLM) proxy authentication.

Similar problems and solutions

You can visit the Microsoft Web sites in the following sections for more information:
Windows Update troubleshooting

Installing multiple updates with only one restart

The hotfix installer that is included with Windows XP and with Windows 2000 post-Service Pack 3 (SP3) updates includes functionality to support multiple hotfix installations. For earlier versions of Windows 2000, the command-line tool that is named «QChain.exe» is available for download.

For more information about how to install multiple updates or multiple hotfixes without restarting the computer between each installation, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
296861 How to install multiple Windows updates or hotfixes with only one reboot

Microsoft security resources

For the latest Microsoft security resources such as security tools, security bulletins, virus alerts, and general security guidance, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
Microsoft Docs

For more information about the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer tool (MBSA), visit the following Microsoft Web site:
What is Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer and its uses?

The Microsoft Download Center

For more information about how to download files from the Microsoft Download Center, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
119591 How to obtain Microsoft support files from online services

Product-specific download pages

Internet Explorer

For Internet Explorer downloads, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
Internet Explorer Downloads

Windows Media Player

For Windows Media Player downloads, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
Windows Media Player

Office Updates

For Office updates, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
Install Office updates

How to delete downloaded Windows Update files

Windows Update works for the most part pretty reliable. It is an automated system of Microsoft’s Windows operating system that handles the downloading and installing of updates for the operating system.

At best, it is a silent service that runs in the background; it may ask you to restart the PC every now and then though as that is still required for many updates, and it sometimes may do so without user interaction.

When you run into issues though with updates, you may spend hours or even days figuring out what is going wrong.

I cannot update one of my PCs to the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update for instance because of a bluescreen that I get whenever I try to do so.

One of the things that you can try when it comes to updates, is to delete downloaded Windows Update files to start over.

If you suspect that something is wrong with the files, or if you want Windows Update to run a new check for updates to download new versions of updates that were released by Microsoft, then you may find the following tip useful for that.

If you run Windows Insider builds on a PC for instance, you may skip an already downloaded update to a new build to download a newer build and avoid having to update the system multiple times.

How to delete downloaded Windows Update files

It is thankfully pretty easy to delete all cached update files. This works on all supported versions of Windows, including Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.

1. Open the Start Menu (tap on the Windows-key or click on it).
2. Type services.msc.
3. Right-click on the result, and select «run as administrator» from the context menu.
4. Locate the Service Windows Update. The services listing is sorted alphabetically by default. Click on name to revert the order so that you don’t need to scroll as much.
5. Right-click on the service Windows Update and select Stop from the menu.
6. Go to C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download using Explorer or any third-party file browser. If you navigate to the folder manually, you may need to enable the showing of hidden files first.
   1. Do so with a click on File > Change folder and search options.
   2. Go to View, and scroll down until you find «Hidden files and folders» listed.
   3. Select «Show hidden files, folders and drives».
   4. Remove the checkmark from «Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)».
   5. Click Apply, then OK.
7. Select all files of the folder. The easiest way to do that is to use Ctrl-A while the folder is active.
8. Hit the Delete-key on the computer keyboard.
9. Windows may need administrator privileges to delete certain files. Select «do this for all current items» and click continue to grant the permissions.
10. Go back to the Services window.
11. Right-click on the Windows Update service, and select Start from the list of options.

You can re-run a check for updates once all files have been deleted. Please note that Windows Update will download all updates anew when you clear the update cache. This can lead to Gigabyte large downloads.

Clear the Windows Update cache from the command line

You may purge the Windows Update cache from the command line as well. While you can type the following commands on an elevated command prompt manually, you may create a small batch file as well toautomate the process.

Here is what you need to do:

1. Tap on the Windows-key to bring up the Start Menu.
2. Type cmd.exe.
3. Hold down the Shift-key and the Ctrl-Key before you select the cmd.exe result. This opens an elevated command prompt.
4. Accept the UAC prompt that Windows displays.
5. Run the following commands and hit enter after each line:
   1. net stop wuauserv
   2. cd %Windir%\SoftwareDistribution
   3. del /f /s /q Download
   4. net start wuauserv

The commands explained:

• net stop wuauserv — This stops the Windows Update service.
• cd %Windir%\SoftwareDistribution — Switches to the SoftwareDistribution directory of the Windows installation.
• del /f /s /q Download — Deletes the Download folder of the SoftwareDistribution directory with
  • /f — force the removal of read-only files.
  • /s — include files in subdirectories.
  • /q — in quiet mode to surpress prompts.
• net start wuauserv — Starts the Windows Update service.

We have uploaded a batch file to our own server which you may run to execute the commands automatically. You need to right-click on the file and select «run as administrator» as it requires administrative privileges.

You can download the file with a click on the following link: clear-windows-update-cache.zip

Note that it is supplied as an archive that you do need to extract before you may run it.

Tip: Check out these Windows Update related articles and guides

Download files from windows update

This forum has migrated to Microsoft Q&A. Visit Microsoft Q&A to post new questions.

Answered by:

Question

Windows Update (and for all I know other MS Update services) appears to download to a temporary folder in the root of the drive with the most free space at the time of the download.

This may be OK for the average PC but is not good practise on servers where the drive with the most free space may be on a SAN or on a non-NTFS formatted drive.

Is there any way of steering the Update service to restrict itself to local drives or even better to specify an exact path for the temporary download folder.

I have been searching the internet for an answer to this but so far drawn a blank. I’m hoping this might be the forum with an answer.

• Moved by Stephen Boots MVP Thursday, March 18, 2010 5:46 PM not MSE, OS not specified (From:Microsoft Security Essentials: Updating Virus and Spyware Definitions)
• Moved by Mike — Support Engineer Microsoft Support Monday, March 22, 2010 3:43 PM Move to correct forum (From:Windows Update)

Answers

Windows Update (and for all I know other MS Update services) appears todownload to a temporary folder in the root of the drive with the most free space at the time of the download.

This may be OK for the average PC but is not good practise on servers where the drive with the most free space may be on a SAN or on a non-NTFS formatted drive.

Is there any way of steering the Update service to restrict itself to local drives or even better to specify an exact path for the temporary download folder.

I have been searching the internet for an answer to this but so far drawn a blank.

All replies

You’d be much better off posting in the appropriate Windows Server forum, Bill: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/category/windowsserver/

Robear Dyer (PA Bear)

MS MVP (IE, Mail, Security, Windows & Update Services) since 2002

Disclaimer: MS MVPs neither represent nor work for Microsoft

Windows Update (and for all I know other MS Update services) appears todownload to a temporary folder in the root of the drive with the most free space at the time of the download.

This may be OK for the average PC but is not good practise on servers where the drive with the most free space may be on a SAN or on a non-NTFS formatted drive.

Is there any way of steering the Update service to restrict itself to local drives or even better to specify an exact path for the temporary download folder.

I have been searching the internet for an answer to this but so far drawn a blank.

As this thread has been quiet for a while, we assume that the issue has been resolved. At this time, we will mark it as ‘Answered’ as the previous steps should be helpful for many similar scenarios.

If the issue still persists and you want to return to this question, please reply this post directly so we will be notified to follow it up. You can also choose to unmark the answer as you wish.

In addition, we’d love to hear your feedback about the solution. By sharing your experience you can help other community members facing similar problems.

Ok, I fully understand that this is the wrong place to look for an answer, but I have spent hours Binging and Googling, and still have no clue as to where to find the answer.

To restate the problem in slightly different terms, I am having a problem with Windows installer when it is invoked by windows update. In the root directory of what is currently my largest-free-space drive *something* (installer?) is creating many empty folders with names like 3f5a0b539bcd9c779f88d91d91531ed4.

Several of these folders are created each day at the same time I have Windows update scheduled to apply updates. They are all empty, and they can be manually deleted.

So, the question is «where can I look to find out how to tell windows to stop leaving these folders on my disk?». It will suffice to know how to get these written to my %temp% folder, as I already have a program which keeps it tidy.

Windows Update (and for all I know other MS Update services) appears todownload to a temporary folder in the root of the drive with the most free space at the time of the download.

This is not an accurate observation. The Windows Update Agent, regardless of whether operating within the context of AU, WU, MU, WSUS, Forefront, Defender, etc., downloads files to the %windir%\SoftwareDistribution\Download folder. For updates installed via the Windows Update Agent, those extractions are always done within the scope of the aforementioned

However, product installers executed locally may chose to extract their installation files into a folder of the root of the volume with the most free space.

This may be OK for the average PC but is not good practise on servers where the drive with the most free space may be on a SAN or on a non-NTFS formatted drive.

Absolutely agree. However, in such instances, and presuming familiarity with the behavior of the (likely FEW) installers that would be executed on a Server Operating System, it is also possible to PRE-extract those files onto the volume of your choice.

Lawrence Garvin, M.S., MCITP:EA, MCDBA, MCSA
SolarWinds Head Geek
Microsoft MVP — Software Packaging, Deployment & Servicing (2005-2013)
My MVP Profile: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Lawrence.Garvin
http://www.solarwinds.com/gotmicrosoft
The views expressed on this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of SolarWinds.

Did you ever find a solution?

The solution is in understanding the problem.

The problem is misbehaving product/update installers that fail to clean up after themselves.

The solution is to complain to the vendors/product teams who are writing those misbehaving installers.

Lawrence Garvin, M.S., MCSA, MCITP:EA, MCDBA
SolarWinds Head Geek
Microsoft MVP — Software Packaging, Deployment & Servicing (2005-2014)
My MVP Profile: http://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/mvp/Lawrence%20R%20Garvin-32101
http://www.solarwinds.com/gotmicrosoft
The views expressed on this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of SolarWinds.

Well, as you are a Microsoft MVP, consider this an official complaint to Micorsoft since I see updates provided via windows update exhibit this behavior.

First, I’m not a sounding board for official complaints to Microsoft. They have channels for doing that if that’s what you want to do. Being an MVP merely means that I’ve been recognized for VOLUNTEERING my time to help people like you in these forums. (I also, unlike a Microsoft employee, have the right to bail on the conversation when it becomes too pedantic.)

Second, the problem here hasn’t even been proven to be a *Microsoft* problem, because until each and every folder is identified by vendor/product, those MSI installations could be from anybody. Or perhaps a more fair answer would be that it’s not exclusive to Microsoft. Also, there are also possibilities that the CLIENT can be responsible for such issues as well.

But.. yes.. Microsoft products have been known to exhibit this behavior, I’m not denying that fact. But this is the wrong place to complain about this behavior because the *WSUS* environment has absolutely nothing to do with the behavior of client-side installers. So while I feel your pain. you’re beating your head on the wall. As I noted previously, the proper approach is to talk to the PRODUCT TEAMs who are building these misbehaving packages.

Lawrence Garvin, M.S., MCSA, MCITP:EA, MCDBA
SolarWinds Head Geek
Microsoft MVP — Software Packaging, Deployment & Servicing (2005-2014)
My MVP Profile: http://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/mvp/Lawrence%20R%20Garvin-32101
http://www.solarwinds.com/gotmicrosoft
The views expressed on this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of SolarWinds.

Well I can confirm this behaviour categorically. When running Windows Update (in the cases I have observed for WHS 2011 — we use them as little test targets for our development) it will generate folders like the ones described on the drive with the greatest available space — There it decompresses the updates prior to installing them. ALL THE FILES ARE FROM MICROSOFT. We have verified this in multiple examples looking at the actual files. It also only occurs during running an update (something we only do manually on the test systems).

So this is clearly caused by an MS «feature» of Windows Update. It’s a nightmare for us because it pollutes data which is supposed to be an exact image of our test data and the Update junk gets synced up to our SAN. Others have noted it too and the only fix I have come across has been removing permission for SYSTEM from the drive in question. Of course this presents an issue where you need SYSTEM to have permission for some other reason (like we do).

So another genius behaviour built in to the Windows Update tool — no idea of a fix yet.

So this is clearly caused by an MS «feature» of Windows Update.

Lawrence Garvin, M.S., MCSA, MCITP:EA, MCDBA
SolarWinds Head Geek
Microsoft MVP — Software Packaging, Deployment & Servicing (2005-2014)
My MVP Profile: http://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/mvp/Lawrence%20R%20Garvin-32101
http://www.solarwinds.com/gotmicrosoft
The views expressed on this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of SolarWinds.

Ok then ALL product teams are doing it. The .NET team, the Windows 2008 OS (Security, Updates and Kernel) team, the IE team, the Defender team . oh and the Windows Update Agent team . Curiously these all chose to put their temp files on the largest drive then to make the Windows Update Service Team look bad? Should we then complain in every single product area? That seems a lot of excessive cross-posting especially when they only time this happens is when doing a lot of updates through Windows Update at once. Still feel Update is the culprit here.

PS . the list above is based upon the files I actually manually trawled through left on the largest drive (in this case V:) after the temp location in C: (60GB free) and the free space in D: (120GB free) and E: (1TB free) were ignored as suitable locations. It went straight for the 10TB array on V:.

Curiously these all chose to put their temp files on the largest drive

Let’s separate what your gripe actually is here.

The Windows Installer Service has ALWAYS extracted installation temp folders to the VOLUME with the most free space, when those installers are run from the console.

When launched by the Windows Update Agent, they’re extracted inside the

\Download folder, because that’s the only resource the WUAgent has access to use.

Now, if your gripe is about where the working directory is built, then I’d say you’re barking up a tree you’ll never climb.

If your gripe is about installers that fail to clean-up after themselves, then I’m totally on the climb with you . I’m just saying you need to be climbing the right tree.

Lawrence Garvin, M.S., MCSA, MCITP:EA, MCDBA
SolarWinds Head Geek
Microsoft MVP — Software Packaging, Deployment & Servicing (2005-2014)
My MVP Profile: http://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/mvp/Lawrence%20R%20Garvin-32101
http://www.solarwinds.com/gotmicrosoft
The views expressed on this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of SolarWinds.

My gripe is actually both because both behaviours are just dumb. pure and simple. There are numerous examples where updates need to be kicked off manually and similarly many situations where certain drives should be off limits. Then to rub salt in the wounds all these temp folders get left behind.

The common solution seems to be to take away right for SYSTEM to the drive you want to keep safe but of course there are numerous reasons why SYSTEM often needs access on such drives.

My gripe is actually both because both behaviours are just dumb.

Okay.. well, I have no time to coddle to gripes about the Windows Installer Service uses volumes. That’s been like that for 15 years, and software engineers way above the pay grade of either you or I had very distinct reasons for designing that way, I’m quite sure.

As for the failure of certain products to clean up after themselves, I think I’ve said all that can be said there too.

where updates need to be kicked off manually

I don’t see why this should matter.

and similarly many situations where certain drives should be off limits.

There are ways to address this issue, although I’m hard pressed to understand why «certain drives» should be off limits to a process running in the context of a system administrator anyway (who, by definition, has access to all of those drives).

Lawrence Garvin, M.S., MCSA, MCITP:EA, MCDBA
SolarWinds Head Geek
Microsoft MVP — Software Packaging, Deployment & Servicing (2005-2014)
My MVP Profile: http://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/mvp/Lawrence%20R%20Garvin-32101
http://www.solarwinds.com/gotmicrosoft
The views expressed on this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of SolarWinds.

Above my pay grade . huh . unlikely though if they are that would explain why there are so many issues stupidities left in MS software these days .. it’s too expensive to do decent testing!

If you don’t understand why we would manually kick off updates then you don’t live in a real world which needs to quickly respond to business needs or realign with testing schedules. In fact if you don’t understand why drives should be off limits you don’t understand anything about enterprise configurations — it’s fantastic to attach 10 new servers to the SAN, have them all patched to very specific but different patch levels for testing and find that by morning said array has been shotgunned with literally tens of thousands of files.

Anyway, clearly this is the Micosoft zealots thread and any further discussion is a distinct waste of time as you are not interested in investigating a solution but developing a PR standpoint.

Anyway, clearly this is the Micosoft zealots thread and any further discussion is a distinct waste of time as you are not interested in investigating a solution but developing a PR standpoint.

Google led me to this den of patronizing MVPs. Like the original poster, I simply wanted an answer to the tech question, not a long thread of pompous rebuke and diatribe about forum catgories and the different flavors of Microsoft setup EXEs. If the question is in the wrong category, just move the question thread to the correct category and notify the member silently.

Microsoft’s .NET Framework 4.0 Standalone Installer is a glaring example of the tech problem: Without permission or warning, the EXE vomits onto the greatest-free-space drive a random-number-titled directory and squirts into it a boatload of temporary installation files. In my case, Microsoft’s POS crapped all over a failing drive from which I was in the process of rescuing deleted files: THAT IS THE WORST THING TO DO, IN SUCH A RESCUE.

BTW, I was compelled to install .NET 4.0, because Seagate’s SeaTools for Windows, lazily written, is .NET bloatware (and probably is not even worth the bother).

Microsoft’s .NET Framework 4.0 Standalone Installer offers no help response to command-line invocation with common switches such as «/?», «-?», «-o», etc.: The vomiting still proceeds as above.

So, rather than pompous self-aggrandisement («Badges» and «awards»? What is this, grade school?), multiline self-promotion signatures, self-serving «volunteerism,» and Microsoft-customer brushoffs, try treating everyone with respect, and forward questions to those who are capable of answering them precisely and without derision.

If you cannot do that, just remain silent and spare us from your useless, transparent, self-serving answers for your «badge» points.

Anyway, clearly this is the Micosoft zealots thread and any further discussion is a distinct waste of time as you are not interested in investigating a solution but developing a PR standpoint.

Google led me to this den of patronizing MVPs. Like the original poster, I simply wanted an answer to the tech question, not a long thread of pompous rebuke and diatribe about forum catgories and the different flavors of Microsoft setup EXEs. If the question is in the wrong category, just move the question thread to the correct category and notify the member silently.

Microsoft’s .NET Framework 4.0 Standalone Installer is a glaring example of the tech problem: Without permission or warning, the EXE vomits onto the greatest-free-space drive a random-number-titled directory and squirts into it a boatload of temporary installation files. In my case, Microsoft’s POS crapped all over a failing drive from which I was in the process of rescuing deleted files: THAT IS THE WORST THING TO DO, IN SUCH A RESCUE.

BTW, I was compelled to install .NET 4.0, because Seagate’s SeaTools for Windows, lazily written, is .NET bloatware (and probably is not even worth the bother).

Microsoft’s .NET Framework 4.0 Standalone Installer offers no help response to command-line invocation with common switches such as «/?», «-?», «-o», etc.: The vomiting still proceeds as above.

So, rather than pompous self-aggrandisement («Badges» and «awards»? What is this, grade school?), multiline self-promotion signatures, self-serving «volunteerism,» and Microsoft-customer brushoffs, try treating everyone with respect, and forward questions to those who are capable of answering them precisely and without derision.

If you cannot do that, just remain silent and spare us from your useless, transparent, self-serving answers for your «badge» points.

thanks for this, i came here in the hope of an answer to this issue, only to find condescension.

what i and the OP are asking, is how do we specify the extraction location for windows updates, there has to be a registry setting that defines the «drive with largest free space» and the extraction path to use, that is what i want to change.

since installing windows 10 i have over 100 random hexadecimally named empty folders clogging up my C:\ and as i’m in charge of an enterprise level distribution of windows 10 systems, nailing down this issue and finding a solid solution is an increasing priority.

Same here months later.

I just discovered the reason my Windows Home Server C: was out of space. Update / Installer CABs and temp files galore building up for months.

Like the previous poster, I assume there is a registry entry of something I can set to direct Update somewhere other than my intentionally small C: volume.

This is probably breaking some forum etiquette but who cares, try this out it may help you.

I wondered if a symbolic link might work. This might be the answer: http://blogs.msmvps.com/jeffloucks/2010/09/19/redirecting-updates-and-the-software-distribution-folder-using-junction-to-another-hard-drive/

There is no wrong tree it’s just people trying to get help where we can. Many of us search bing or google for similar answers and up here. We aren’t privy to Microsoft’s insider understanding of where the truth lives or otherwise wouldn’t be asking for help in the first place. Maybe just simplify your whole answer forum to one ombudsman smart enough to direct traffic to where it’s supposed to go for the right answer. Isn’t that what you advertise anyway?

Cheers, and thanks for even the partial help above.

For those in pain, I’ve found two links which may be useful.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa371372(VS.85).aspx — the exact reason. Because MSI was designed in almost-prehistoric times, I suppose. And never reworked.

https://serverfault.com/questions/372789/keep-windows-installer-from-using-largest-drive-for-temporary-files#763266 — may be useful. Or follow links.

For MVP guys here — I understand you don’t like to be treated this way. But you make yourselves to be treated like this. And honestly the way MSI behaves, like being unable to respect %TMP% environment (designed for these exact cases) tells much about competence of its implementors. I could continue arguing about some crappy aspects of Windows componentization and update aspects — but I won’t.

EDIT: just got NET update installer vomiting to external HDD. How do you like it? If WinUpdate uses such crappy tech as MSI and is unable to manage it in a reasonable fashion, then it’s crappy too.

%windir%\SoftwareDistribution\Download WORKED PERFECTLY FOR ME

iT WAS FULL OF FILES WHICH i DELETED AND THIS WAS THE ALMOST ENTIRE PROBLEM of disk space in the case of me

It is now 2018, and this problem still exists!

I like many others have come across this thread whilst trying to find an answer to a ‘real world’ (non ivory-tower) problem.

In my case, the problem started because the Cluster Aware Updating tool was not detecting the SQL Server 2016 Service pack 2 update, but Windows Update would.

As a result, we scheduled an update window with the client, then clicked to install the update on the primary online node, Windows Update downloaded the package and started the update . . . BAM! Failed update.

Because of the behaviour the OP and others have reported, when Windows Update invoked the Service Pack installer, it had extracted the update files onto the SQL SAN DATA disk (where all the critical business data is stored!). When it then shut down the SQL Cluster service to install the update, it also took down the drive the update had installed to.

I had to solve this (in case anyone else expreriences this) by using the following steps:

1. Shut down one of the nodes (to stop the cluster service interfering if it detected the failure).
2. Take SQL Server offline so that the cluster drives disappeared.
3. Start the service pack updated via Windows Update
4. Wait until the hexadecimal folder appeared on a local drive
5. Start ONLY the cluster disks in the Cluster manager role, just in case it needs access to any SQL Server files before it stops the cluster role.
6. Wait for update to complete, start up secondary node and run the update. As the secondary node is in passive state and the drives are owned by the other node, it will not extract to cluster disk and will install correctly (it should detect the updates are already applied to the other node and will only update the files rather than files + databases).

Following this process, the update was successful.

This is a classic example of WHY there needs to be and MSIEXEC drive/location blacklist. It’s all well and good adopting the condescending attitude of ‘it’s not a windows update problem’, but the touchpoint is the invocation FROM Windows Update.

If Windows Update is invoking windows installer files, it should either be specifying paths to the msiexec installer, or the windows update team should be feeding this back to a central team to raise awareness of a problem. Surely there is a central «architecture team» in Microsoft to ensure all groups are using the same approach, and to catch problems that are affecting multiple packages and operating systems? The attidude of «contact each vendor and group in Microsoft» is ridiculous.

The Windows Installer SERVICE and MSIEXEC exes that are invoked from Windows Update (or when an MSI, etc is executed manually) are owned by Microsoft. As Microsoft customers, we cannot be expected to know every Tom, Dick and Harry to raise a problem with every group in Microsoft, to track down the team responsible (whichever team it is that is supposed to maintain Windows Installer/MSIEXEC) to raise a problem in the behaviour of an operating system component.

The fix needs to be done by Microsoft, and rolled out using Windows Update (!) to stop this behaviour, or at least, as others have suggested over several YEARS, provide a registry key to set the default path and/or blacklist drives/locations from MSIEXEC’s use as a temporary location.

In the real world outside Microsoft, we also have lots of teams and groups. If we have a problem raised to us that is not in our area, which is a dependency of our product/service, we INTERNALLY assign/raise a bug with the team that ARE responsible for that area. We don’t fob off our customers with «we don’t look after this» style excuses.

Colin Smith, MSc, BSc, MCP, TOGAF 9 Certified Architect