Windows 8.1 installation error 0x80070004

Anonymous
2013-10-17T12:56:28+00:00

I got the following message while updating Windows 8 to 8.1 from the Store (translated from hungarian):

An error had occured and the installation of Windows 8.1 was unsuccessful. Try again. Error code: 0x80070004

The event log shows the following:

"Telepítési hiba: A Windows 0x80070004 hiba miatt nem tudta telepíteni a következő frissítést: Hungarian ESD Bundle Parent."

In english: Installation error: Windows could not isntall the following update: Hungarian ESD Bundle Parent, with error 0x80070004.

What should I do?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Install and upgrade

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2013-12-10T01:08:25+00:00

Hi,

If you receive error 0x80070004 when you install Windows 8.1, please first check the following:

1.      This error may occur if you are using symbolic links (via the mklink command) to redirect your user profile to another drive.  If so, you can resolve this by restoring your user profile to the system drive by following the steps in KB 2876597.

2.      This error may also occur if you have a corrupt user profile.  To check for this:

·         Open the System Properties (Type “System” at the Start screen, and then select “System”.)

·         Select Advanced system settings.

·         In the Advanced tab, under User Profiles, select Settings.

·         Try to log into any profiles you see listed here.  If you’re unable to log in, that profile may be corrupt.  Return to the User Profiles in Advanced system settings and delete the corrupt profile.  If you see any profiles listed as “Unknown” or that otherwise look corrupt, delete those profiles as well.

·         Try creating a new administrator profile and try installing Windows 8.1 from the new profile.  You can find steps for creating a new profile and copying the old profile to the new one at Fix a corrupted user profile.  (This was written for Vista, but the steps are similar.  You can find Folder Options for displaying hidden system files in the Control Panel, under Appearance and Personalization.)

If you’ve confirmed that you’ve tried all of these steps and you’re still receiving error 0x80070004 when installing Windows 8.1, we would like to collect more information to try to identify additional causes.  Please run this automated utility, which will collect log files and send them to Microsoft.  (You can also choose to save the information to your desktop.)  If you get a message that says the utility has already expired, that means we have already collected enough sample files. 

This log analysis may take some time.  We will post a fix or solution as soon as additional sources for this error are confirmed.  We appreciate your help in collecting this information.

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-10-18T16:13:18+00:00

    i also get the error and have my users folder on a seperate drive, have you found a fix?

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-10-18T15:38:29+00:00

    I had the same error code but I never messed around with symlinks.  Error logs showed NTFS corruption ~60 seconds before every time 8.1 failed.  chkdsk solved the problem for me.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-10-18T15:00:08+00:00

    Looking through my error log, I saw references to one of my old user accounts having a corrupt registry. This was a Microsoft user account I'd been using on my PC until it borked about 3 months ago and I wasn't able to run any Metro/Store apps except for Settings and Desktop. Every other app, including the Store itself, would crash as soon as you clicked on them. I couldn't use the WSRESET.EXE fix because the Store wouldn't stay open long enough to purge the cache.

    So... I couldn't find a fix and just bided my time with what was essentially Windows 7 until 8.1 would be released.

    Tonight (Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi) in my efforts to get 8.1 installed to fix my mess, I turned my (corrupted) Microsoft account into a local account, and created a new Microsoft account using the same credentials on the same machine. By doing this, I was able to download the 8.1 update, but got the 80070004 error each time I tried to finish installing it. After seeing the corrupt user registry mentions in the error log file, I saved all my photos, music and documents out of C:\Users\Riven into folders on the new account and deleted the old user account.

    Once this was done, I was able to finally finish the 8.1 Pro WMC install, and haven't encountered any issues thus far.

    I don't know if this will help anyone else who had the same error and didn't use symbolic links for their SSDs.

    Steps, in short: (if error log mentions corrupt user registry)

    1. Convert current MS account into a local account
    2. Create new MS account with administrator privileges
    3. Save data from old C:\User\* folder libraries
    4. Delete old local account
    5. Open up the store and download + install the update
    6. Put the feet up and have a glass of whiskey

    Thanks to everyone, and good luck with your issues.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-10-18T14:57:12+00:00

    Unfortunately, this is not a solution for people (like me) who set the symlink on Users !

    But it seems to confirm the symlink problem.

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