How to manually trigger the Windows 10 upgrade on Windows 7/8.1

Here’s how you can manually force the download of Windows 10 when you’ve already reserved it and it’s not showing in Windows Update.

Windows 10 Start menu

If you’ve already reserved your free copy of Windows 10 from your Windows 7 Service Pack 1 or Windows 8.1 Update and the upgrade isn’t showing up, then you should try the following workaround. Microsoft is now gradually rolling out Windows 10 on 190 countries and on 111 languages, so as you may imagine trying to upgrade everyone will be a time consuming process.

However, if you want to skip the queue, you can manually trigger the download files to upgrade immediately. To do this, ensure Windows Update can download and install updates automatically. If you haven’t done it before, you can follow these Microsoft instructions.

Then navigate the following path:

C:\windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download

Select and delete all the content inside the Download folder to start fresh with Windows Windows.

Now open the Command Prompt with administrative privileges – simply do a search for cmd on Windows, right-click and select Run as administrator –, then type the following command:

wuauclt.exe/updatenow

This should manually trigger the download of Windows 10.

Source Windows Central

About the author

Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 14 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 20 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me.