How to Change the Location of Windows 10 Updates Download Folder?

by Emily Johnson Technical Advisor

Are you facing issues related to low space while running Windows 10 Update? In this article, you are going to learn how to change the Windows 10 Updates download folder. If you think that the process is going to be super easy, then you are still in the world of dreams. Wake up! There is no single option provided by Microsoft to change the Windows 10 Updates downloading path. That means you will have to do some crazy hard work to achieve this. Don’t panic; we are here to help and read the whole article thoroughly from scratch.

Why Do You Need to Change the System Preferred Windows 10 Update Download Folder?

If you want to update the Windows on your computer, then you need at least 16-20 gigabytes of free space on your C drive. In many laptops that use small storage such as 32 or 64 GB EMMC or 128 GB SSD, the C drive remains almost full. In such cases, the user has no other choice instead of changing the Windows 10 Update download folder location. By doing so, there will be fewer loads on the system drive, and the computer will remain fast and smooth. A stuffed system drive is never considered good for PC health.

Note: Take a thorough backup of your full computer to prevent any loss of essential data and programs. You can also manually transfer essential files to an external hard drive.

How to Change the Download Location of Windows 10 Updates?

For a better understanding, we have split the whole process into several steps. Follow each step one by one to change the Windows 10 update download location.

Step 1: Making a new Folder for Windows 10 Update

Go to the File Explorer and then browse the drive in which you want to store Windows update files.
Now right-click inside the drive and then hover your mouse cursor over the New option.
After that, press the Folder option located on the top. Now give it a name of your choice.

Step 2: Stopping the Service of Windows Update

What we need to do next is simply stop the windows update service with the help of Task Manager. Let’s see how to do that.

Hit Ctrl+Shift+Esc keys together, and it will trigger the Task Manager.
In the top menu, choose the Services option.
Now look for the “wuauserv” service by scrolling down slowly-slowly.
By right-clicking on it, choose the Stop option.

Step 3: Renaming the Default Download Folder

We need to change the name of the default windows updates download folder to something else. Here’s how to do it:

Open the File Explorer and then go to the C drive. Now navigate to the Windows folder.
Find and rename the “SoftwareDistribution” folder. You may be asked to select the yes or no option. So choose the Yes option and then put “old” in front of the existing name.
Press Enter to save the changes.

Step 4: Define a Soft Link to the New Window Update Folder

You have already created a new folder for Windows Update downloads, but that’s not enough. Your computer still needs to understand where to store the Windows Update files. In this step, you are going to show your computer a new path for downloading updates. To do so, follow these steps:

Go to the Start Menu and then Search for Cmd. Open the Command Prompt as an administrator by right-clicking on the app and clicking on the “Run as Administrator.
Open the File Explorer, then navigate to the new Windows update download folder and then double click on the directory bar located on the top. Now right-click on it and then choose Copy
Enter the following command but replace the “d:\NewUpdateFolder” with the file directory of the new Windows update folder that you just copied.
1. “mklink /j c:\windows\SoftwareDistribution d:\NewUpdateFolder”
Press the Enter key.

After entering the command, there must be a message saying “Junction Created For,” followed by the file location.

Step 5: Restart the Windows Update Service

Now all you need to do is simply start the Windows Update service once again in the Task Manager. You can follow the same instructions that we used to stop the service.

Emily Johnson is a Norton product expert and has been working in the technology industry since 2002. As a technical expert, she has written technical blogs, manuals, white papers, and reviews for many websites such as norton.com/setup.

Source : http://sy-norton.com/how-to-change-the-location-of-windows-10-updates-download-folder/