Recently one of my colleague send me an email regarding the Windows Update error. Here is what he said:

Hi Kapil,

I have got some Windows Update error and due to which I am unable to update the computer.  Actually I am trying to run the latest updates for McAfee but troubled with error provided by Windows Defender. The error is that “Installer encountered an error – 0xc8000247”. I am trying to update via standalone procedure. Here is the snapshot of the issue. Please provide me any immediate fix.

Thanks…

XYZ

Without wasting your time any more here is the immediate fix that you can do:

FIX : 0xc8000247 – Windows Update Standalone Installer Encountered Error

1. Open administrative Command Prompt.

2. Now type the following command and hit Enter:

net stop wuauserv

3. Now navigate to following location in Windows Explorer:

C:\Windows\Software\Distribution

Find the folder Download here and delete all files inside it.

4. Now again follow the first step and this time provide following command:

net start wuauserv

Now reboot the machine and re-try to install the updates, it should work fine.

That’s it!

19 Comments

Add your comment

  • Christina Samuels

    hey there! nice job dude and the theme is nice in images..

  • Philippe de Milly

    Wonderful article and I am really very helpful thank you

  • Ann

    Get an error at step 2, net stop wuauserv : System error 5 has occurred. Access is denied.

    Now what should I do please?

  • Ann

    Oops, wasn’t running as administrator. All done, except no files to delete. Now to try update………..

  • Ann

    Didn’t work. Still can’t update. I’m fed up and going to sleep.

  • Serge

    Didn’t work for me ether, any other ideas
    thanks

  • Lisa

    Did not work for me either. There were no files in it.

  • Kapil Arya

    ^^ Strange! Why you guys are not having this folder, I have checked again, its there for me :) I insist you to recheck.

  • Spanner69

    Thank you Kapil, I have been through quite a few procedures but then hit your site. How simple could this actually be……..brilliant.

  • Kapil Arya

    ^^ Glad we could help :)

  • Jay Rubin

    Worked for me ! U can move the files to another folder as a backup, just in case… N.B. the hex error number was different in my case: “installer encountered an error: 0xc800003f3”
    Thanks alot

  • Kapil Arya

    ^^ Glad it worked! :)

  • EmilyManson

    On step number 2 after I entered the net stop wuauserv command, it says “The service is starting or stopping. Please try again later.”
    What should I do now?

  • Kapil Arya

    ^^ Manually stop/start Windows Update service in Services snap-in (run services.msc command to get this).

  • NLo

    This did not work for me at all. :(
    I did notice I had 3 folders named Windows. (windows, windows.old, windows.old.000) and at first deleted the files in the download folder of Windows… restarted… same error. So the next time I proceeded to delete the downloaded files of each download folder in windows.old and windows.old.000. Still nothing. Ran the command ‘sfc /scannow’ and it reported back that it could not fix all corrupted files. I am completely out of ideas. Mind you, this is a brand new install of Win 7 32bit.

  • Kapil Arya

    ^^ Try third DISM command mentioned here: http://www.kapilarya.com/fix-do-inbox-corruption-repair-using-dism-in-windows-8

  • James

    Hi i followed your steps, however when I got to the downloads folder it was empty. So I figured ok I’ll delete the folder and then restart the computer and see what happens, amazingly it worked, I am now finally able to download updates.
    Thanks

  • Kapil Arya

    ^^ Thanks for your feedback!

  • jON

    DID NOT WORK AT ALL!!!…….

  • Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *