I had this problem of the auto-update continually failing. From memory I did a manual update of Windows 10 and that solved the problem. The saga of finding out how to do a manual update took some time.
The last update (December) downloaded and installed without hiccups other than two restarts during the process.
Where possible I have auto-updating disabled or only active when I get to the update settings so it does not affect my program processes.

I have a vague memory my problem stemmed from using older hardware from last decade. This might also be your issue. I think there is a different update for the 'older' machines.


Sorry but I cannot help myself but saying this. I come from a Mac environment. MacOSX updates can be selectively chosen. If any one update fails, the other updates are still applied to the system after a reboot. For this reason I find MS Windows updates clumsy and poorly thought out. With Windows, if any one part of the process fails, the entire set of update packages can fail. Since system updates are so important for security reasons, MS should be offering alternative approaches for successful installations of security updates.

I have not attempted to create a USB Thumb Drive boot drive for Windows, but it is relatively easily done for MacOSX. I should imagine it can also be done for Windows with just the basic system skeleton and most important personal files such as settings files. Sorry to talk off-topic about a different type of system.