In order to maintain a secure and stable Windows system, it’s essential to download and install the latest updates through the Windows Update Center – either auto­mat­ic­ally or manually. Going without these updates will mean known errors and iden­ti­fied security vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies will continue to exist on your system, un­ne­ces­sar­ily exposing you to system issues and security risks. Although not self-inflicted, errors like 0x8024200d are just as critical because they prevent the update process and the problem can persist even after re­start­ing the computer.

We show you what this update error is all about and which possible solutions are the most promising.

What is the 0x8024200d Error All About?

The Windows error code “0x8024200d” relates to an in­stall­a­tion problem with a system update. In this instance, it’s possible that the update process is com­pletely blocked or that only part of the available update is affected by the issue. Besides the code “0x8024200d”, Windows often also displays the message “WU_E_UH_NEEDAN­OT­HER­DOWN­LOAD”, which suggests that the error won’t be fixed by simply repeating the update process. The update handler can’t work with the existing in­stall­a­tion files. This can be due to a wide range of reasons. This includes erroneous data, update com­pon­ents that are defective or haven’t yet started, or a lack of storage space. Moreover, malware and third-party ap­plic­a­tions like antivirus programs or tuning tools can be re­spons­ible for a blocked update.

Error 0x8024200d occurs both on the current version Windows 10 as well as on older editions like Windows 7 or Windows Vista.

The Best Solutions for the Windows Error “0x8024200d”

Since the Windows update error can be due to a range of causes, there are also various solutions available. However, the general problem is that you don’t receive any in­form­a­tion what­so­ever from Windows about where you should look for the error. So, you have no choice other than to work through the list of possible causes, one after another to fix the 0x8024200d error.

Before you get started, you should at least try to resolve the issue by re­start­ing the computer: The prob­ab­il­ity is very low, but there’s still a chance that the prob­lem­at­ic update will run af­ter­wards – for instance, because the download server simply couldn’t be reached before or because Windows itself wasn’t working properly.

If the Windows update continues to display the error code “0x8024200d” after you reboot the computer, you’ll need to look for the cause of the problem yourself. The solutions presented below have proven to be helpful.

Solution 1: De­ac­tiv­ate Third-Party Security Software (Tem­por­ar­ily)

If the 0x8024200d error is pre­vent­ing the in­stall­a­tion of a new Windows update, you should first take a look at your security software before you implement any changes to system files, services or settings. For example, if you’ve installed ad­di­tion­al security programs against malware on your system besides Windows Defender and Windows Firewall, there’s a chance that they’re blocking the operating system’s update process. You can easily check whether this is the case by tem­por­ar­ily de­ac­tiv­at­ing the cor­res­pond­ing ap­plic­a­tions and then trying the update again.

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If you were able to identify an antivirus software, a malware scanner or a similar program as the cause of the problem, you have three different options:

  1. Contact the man­u­fac­turer of the software and report this issue.
  2. Uninstall the prob­lem­at­ic ap­plic­a­tion and replace it with a similar al­tern­at­ive.
  3. De­ac­tiv­ate the security software whenever you receive error messages like “0x8024200d” when updating Windows (not re­com­men­ded if Windows Defender and Firewall are also disabled).

Solution 2: Use the Windows Update Troubleshoot­er

Windows errors that start with the code “0x8024” can often be resolved using the Windows Update Troubleshoot­er. This is in­teg­rated as standard in Windows 10, as well as older versions like Windows 8, however, it can also be down­loaded from the Microsoft Support Forum. It’s par­tic­u­larly advisable to download the troubleshoot­er if you haven’t been able to update Windows for a long time – and are therefore less likely to have the up-to-date version of the troubleshoot­er. Once it has been down­loaded, launch the down­loaded .diagcab file simply by double clicking, select “Windows Update” and click on “Next” to start the automatic troubleshoot­er.

Image: Windows Update Troubleshooter in Windows 10
Once you’ve clicked on the “Advanced” option after starting the troubleshoot­er, you can run the review process as an ad­min­is­trat­or to increase your chances of success.

For the in­teg­rated troubleshoot­er in Windows 10, the following steps are necessary:

  1. Open the Start menu (Windows symbol) and open the Settings (cog symbol).
  2. Click on “Update and Security”.
  3. Switch to the “Troubleshoot­er” tab.
  4. Click on the “Windows Update” entry and then on “Run troubleshoot­er”.

Solution 3: Tem­por­ar­ily Delete Windows In­stall­a­tion Files

Another option for fixing the 0x8024200d error is to delete the auto­mat­ic­ally cached system files for the Windows update. It’s possible that they include defective files or in­com­plete patches that prevent the update to the operating system.

Note

You need ad­min­is­trat­or rights to delete system files!

Windows provides the “Disk Cleanup” tool for this purpose; it can be started using the “Run” dialogue box. You can open it either via the button with the same name in the Start menu or using the key com­bin­a­tion [Windows key] + [R]. As soon as you’ve opened the window, enter the following:

cleanmgr

Confirm your entry with “OK” and Windows will open the Disk Cleanup tool. Now select the drive Windows is saved on – usually C: – and click on “OK” again. Next, you can press the button “Clear system files”. After a quick check, Windows will display a list of files that may be deleted, where you can select the following entries (provided they are listed):

  • Windows Update Cleanup
  • Down­loaded Program Files
  • Temporary Internet Files
  • Temporary Files
  • System Error Small Memory Dump Files
  • Temporary Windows In­stall­a­tion Files
  • Temporary Windows Setup Files
Image: Disk Cleanup for the boot drive in Windows 10
Disk Cleanup auto­mat­ic­ally shows how much storage space is freed up by deleting the selecting files.

Click on “OK” one last time and then on “Delete files” to start the cleanup. After the tool has finished the process, you should then restart the system before trying to run the update again.

Solution 4: Restart the Update and Download Service

In order for the Windows Update Center to establish contact with Microsoft servers and download and install provided updates, it uses the Windows Update (WU) service as well as the Back­ground In­tel­li­gent Transfer Service (BITS), among others. The former supports the entire update process, while the latter serves as a download manager and provides optimal util­isa­tion of bandwidth and the re­sump­tion of in­ter­rup­ted downloads. If these two services aren’t working properly or can’t even be started, the “0x8024200d” update problem can arise at any time.

Tip

The maximum bandwidth provided for new updates can be limited in the advanced settings of the Windows update (under “Transfer Op­tim­isa­tion”). Use this option if the automatic Windows update regularly takes up too much of your capacity.

In this case, the solution involves ending these services, deleting the content of the directory Windows\Soft­ware­Dis­tri­bu­tion\Download and sub­sequently re­start­ing both services. Begin by per­form­ing the following steps to stop the services:

  1. Open the “Run” dialogue via the Start menu or using the key com­bin­a­tion [Windows key] + [R].
  2. Enter “services.msc”.
  3. Press “OK” to open the Services Manager.
  4. Search for the entries “Windows Update” and “Back­ground In­tel­li­gent Transfer Service” and press the “End the service” button for each of them.

Keep the Services Manager window open while deleting the content of the Update Download Directory. You can also open this via the “Run” dialogue by entering the complete pathway there:

C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download

Delete all files and folders contained in this directory without deleting the download folder itself, and then restart the system.

Note

If you’ve chosen another in­stall­a­tion location for your Windows system, you’ll need to change the drive letter ac­cord­ingly.

Now restart the two update services by clicking on “Start the service” for both entries:

Image: Windows 10: Services Manager
In the Services Manager, you can see in the “Start Type” section which start settings are entered for the re­spect­ive service – manual, automatic or de­ac­tiv­ated.

Solution 5: Check System Files for Errors

If in­stalling new updates produces the error code “0x8024200d”, this can also be due to damaged or missing system files. To check whether this is the case, you can use the System File Checker (SFC) in­teg­rated as standard. The tool can be launched via command line, provided you have ad­min­is­trat­or rights. It examines all protected system files, and also attempts to resolve any dis­covered issues. If the fix is un­suc­cess­ful, you’ll at least receive a detailed report in the CBS.log file found in the directory Windows\Logs\CBS.

To start the SFC, you need to run the command prompt as an ad­min­is­trat­or – otherwise the command won’t work even with the cor­res­pond­ing rights. You can start the command prompt as ad­min­is­trat­or by following these steps:

  1. Open the Windows search function.
  2. Enter the term “cmd”.
  3. Right-click on the displayed entry “Command Prompt”.
  4. Select the menu item “Run as ad­min­is­trat­or”.
Image: Windows search function: Result for search term “cmd”
If you can’t find the command prompt using the search function, you can al­tern­at­ively open it via the start icon with the same name in the Start menu (located in the “Windows System” section).

Now enter the following command into the command line:

sfc /scannow

Press the [Enter] key to confirm the command and then wait until the system check has been fully completed. It can take a few minutes. Leave the command prompt window open during this time.

Solution 6: Clear and Expand the System Partition if Necessary

One possible cause for the 0x8024200d error is that the hard drive or partition that Windows is installed in does not have suf­fi­cient free space. You should first try to clear up any un­ne­ces­sary files from the Windows drive if you haven’t already done so as part of Solution 3 (see above).

If there still isn’t enough storage space after cleaning up the disk, the al­tern­at­ive solution is to expand the size of the system partition. Windows offers an in­teg­rated tool called “Disk Man­age­ment” for this purpose. It can be opened as follows and used to expand the partition:

  1. Open the Windows Start menu and click on the entry “Computer Man­age­ment” under “Windows Man­age­ment Programs”.
  2. Under the “Disk” section, look for “Disk Man­age­ment” and select it to obtain a list of existing par­ti­tions.
  3. Right-click on the system partition and then select the item “Expand volume”.
Image: “Computer Management” menu in Windows 10
Disk Man­age­ment can also be opened sep­ar­ately via “Run”. The entry required is “diskmgmt.msc”.
Note

If the option “Expand volume” is greyed out, the storage space after the partition to be expanded is not available as it is used by the following partition. In this case, you’ll need to move the storage piece by piece by reducing the volume of the following par­ti­tions con­sec­ut­ively. Here it is advisable to use a third-party program such as Paragon Hard Disk Manager.

Solution 7: Manually Download and Install the Windows Update

If the 0x8024200d error can’t be resolved with the above solutions, you can try to download and install the prob­lem­at­ic update yourself – without the Windows Update Centre. All you need to do this is the update ID (starting with the letters “KB”) as well as the online database operated by Microsoft, the Microsoft Update Catalogue.

Tip

The update ID can be found in the Update Center: Display the update history and note the updates’ KB number which caused the 0x8024200d error, shown in brackets.

You can open the online catalogue at any time using the browser of your choice. Simply click on the above link or type the URL “catalog.update.microsoft.com” into the address bar. Next, enter the ID into the catalogue’s search bar and click “Search”:

Image: Microsoft Update Catalogue: Update search
The Microsoft update database was only available with the Microsoft browser Internet Explorer and after in­stalling the ActiveX framework until 2015.

Following a suc­cess­ful search, the web catalogue lists the available versions of the searched update. Select the suitable version for your system – Windows (desktop) or Windows Server – and the un­der­ly­ing ar­chi­tec­ture – ARM64, x64 or x84. Af­ter­wards, click on “Download” in the re­spect­ive line and then on the link provided in order to start the download. If you’re unsure about what system ar­chi­tec­ture you have, you can find out using the command prompt. Simply enter the command “sys­teminfo” and look for the value in the “System Type” line:

Image: Windows Command Prompt: Result of the “systeminfo” command
You can use the “sys­teminfo” command to also find out the directory Windows is installed in, as well as the current version of the operating system.

After you’ve down­loaded the re­spect­ive update file (.msu), start the in­stall­a­tion by double-clicking. Then follow the in­struc­tions given by the assistant to update your system properly, thereby also fixing the 0x8024200d issue.

Please note the legal dis­claim­er relating to this article.

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