How to solve the Windows 10 Something Happened error

So you waited patiently and finally, you received the notification to download and upgrade to Windows 10. After a bit of time, you return to your computer to see this message “Something happened” and the only button is a close button.

This is not a very useful message.

Having researched this message on the Microsoft site and forum, I discovered a couple of items that might be useful.

Option 1

This is a simple one. Just check that the Date and Time is set to Automatic and the System Locale to English.  Click on Clock, Region and Language then Region then Administrative then Change System Locale to the United States. Now re-run the update and see if that works.

Option 2

Download the Windows Update Troubleshooter and this tool will step through options to try resolve any issues.

Option 3

Need to ensure that the required services are enabled:

1. Type services.msc in RUN or Start search box and press Enter. It’ll open Services Manager.

2. Now make sure the following services are set to Automatic :

• Automatic Updates OR Windows Update
• Background Intelligent Transfer Service
• Server
• Workstation
• TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
• IKE and AuthIP IPsec Keying Modules

If any of the above-mentioned services are not running or not set to Automatic, simply double-click on the service and set the Startup type to Automatic then click on “Start” button start the service. Repeat these steps for all of these services.

3. Once complete, restart the computer and re-run the Windows 10 Creation Tool.

Option 4

This is a more technical solution to reset the Windows Update component:

1. Open Command Prompt in Administrator mode .

2. Stop the BITS service, the Windows Update service, and the Cryptographic service. Type the following commands pressing Enter after each one.

• net stop bits
• net stop wuauserv
• net stop appidsvc
• net stop cryptsvc

3. Rename the software distribution folders backup copies:

• Ren %systemroot%\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.bak
• Ren %systemroot%\system32\catroot2 catroot2.bak

4. Restart the services by typing these command into the Command Prompt in Administrator mode:

• net start bits
• net start wuauserv
• net start appidsvc
• net start cryptsvc

5.Restart your PC and check if it works this time when you try to update.