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My computer tried to install the Feature update "24H2".

It said there wasn't enough free space, although my C: partition is just over 64GB. Its space-saving suggestions didn't help, so I temporarily disabled the pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys files. I think I had to reboot as well, to free up the space from pagefile.sys. This left over 10GB free.

Windows also said it needed to use my USB stick (F:), as a temporary space.

Unfortunately, the update failed. Settings > Update Settings showed 24H2 had failed with error code 0x80070052. What can I do?

sourcejedi
  • 3,860

1 Answers1

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Check the error code. For code 0x80070052, Google says the error text is "The directory or file cannot be created".

I can't find anything specific about 0x80070052 in Windows Update.

Traditionally, we run the Windows Update Troubleshooter. It didn't seem to find a specific problem in my case. I believe it always says it "fixed" something generally. Either way, it did not convince me it had found anything, and it did not solve the problem.

A checklist advised me to look at setuperr.log, in $Windows.~BT\Sources\Panther\. That folder is hidden, but can be opened in File Manager using the location bar. I copied setuperr.log to my Documents folder, and opened it. It included:

2025-06-17 21:05:09, Error                            CopyDirectoryFileCallback: Unable to copy file from [\\?\C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download\56f224628297423ca52eea688bc6e3b3\Microsoft-Windows-Client-Desktop-Required-Package~~amd64~~10.0.26100.1\amd64_microsoft-windows-shell32-kf-commonmusic_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.26100.1_none_760a3fa79d0dd71f.manifest] to [\\?\F:\$WINDOWS.~TMP\Microsoft-Windows-Client-Desktop-Required-Package~~amd64~~10.0.26100.1\amd64_microsoft-windows-shell32-kf-commonmusic_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.26100.1_none_760a3fa79d0dd71f.manifest]; GLE = 0x52[gle=0x00000052]
2025-06-17 21:05:09, Error                            EnumeratePathEx: Callback requested enumeration interruption or hit internal enumeration failure on [\\?\C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download\56f224628297423ca52eea688bc6e3b3\Microsoft-Windows-Client-Desktop-Required-Package~~amd64~~10.0.26100.1\*]; GLE = 0x52[gle=0x00000052]
2025-06-17 21:05:09, Error                 SP         SPCopyFilesAndFolders: Failed to copy folder C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download\56f224628297423ca52eea688bc6e3b3\Microsoft-Windows-Client-Desktop-Required-Package~~amd64~~10.0.26100.1 to F:\$WINDOWS.~TMP\Microsoft-Windows-Client-Desktop-Required-Package~~amd64~~10.0.26100.1. Error: 0x80070052[gle=0x00000052]
2025-06-17 21:05:09, Error                 SP     Operation failed: Move source WIM file to the scratch space. Error: 0x80070052[gle=0x000000b7]

Since this was an error with the F: partition [sic] on my USB stick, I reformatted F: (which deletes everything on it). I used NTFS format. I think it was previously in FAT32 format. I was a bit suspicious about that at the time, due to reports of 0x80070052 and specifically the maximum file size of 4GB on FAT32. That is only a guess, however.

After reformatting F:, the update succeeded.

sourcejedi
  • 3,860