Last week after Microsoft finally released a new build of Windows 10 Technical Preview after a long wait. I was keen to try the new build on my 8 inch Encore 8 tablet so I set it off downloading, at first the Encore seemed to be downloading the update but it turned out it be downloading Windows Defender updates. It would then start downloading the 10041 build but then fail with a rather cryptic error message: 0x80246017.

On the Microsoft support forums there is a very long thread about the error with many suggestions of registry changes, deleting temporary downloaded update files and more which I spent ages experimenting with but in the end I found a simple solution that worked the first time. I haven’t see it documented anywhere in relation to the error so I thought I would get it down here.

If you get 0x80246017 when installing the Windows 10 update the fix that worked for me involved reinstalling Windows 10 from an ISO.

  1. First you download the January Windows 10 Technical Preview ISO (build 9926 from Windows Insiders) and either copy it to the Windows machine or copy it to an external drive attached to the machine.
  2. Next you right click on the ISO file and select Mount.
  3. Run the setup.exe from the mounted drive and install Windows 10
  4. It will do an in-place upgrade and keep all your apps (modern and Win32) and keep your settings intact.
  5. After you have completed the install you go to Windows Update and check for updates
  6. It will then download updates for the existing build and then the 10041 build
  7. Once it has downloaded the update it will install the new build and update Windows.

This worked for me and now I have the latest build up and running. So persistence pays off and now I have build 10041 on my Encore 8.

2 thoughts on “How to fix error 0x80246017 when installing Windows 10 build 10041”
  1. Hello!
    So using this method i dont lose any data/files?
    Thanks for the post, i also tried all those registry changes and stuff 😀

Leave a Reply