Windows 11 update error 0x80070002

Have been struggling with this error for some time. I was stuck with some old build in the developer channel. It was the CU updates that failed, almost all others installed ok. Hoping that a new build would manage to install, but no. I decided to finally to a inplace-upgrade to latest build, Downloaded the ISO and mounted it in explorer. Ran setup.exe. And…. after some time FAILURE and rollback. When I finally could log in to windows a message box stating:

0x80070002 – 0x20007
The installation failed in the SAFE_OS phase with en error during INSTALL_DRIVERS operation

Not much more helpful, but it state that it was a driver install error. This error code was not mentioned in the upgrade error list from Microsoft : Get help with Windows upgrade and installation errors (microsoft.com).But now I could have a look at windows install logs. Log files and resolving upgrade errors – Windows Deployment | Microsoft Docs and det log to look in is “setupact.log” (a rather large file , 74mb in my case). A few lines above the bottom there was an entry : “2021-12-03 09:26:46, Error DISM API: PID=1480 TID=1804 Driver package C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\realtekapo.inf_amd64_bdd2377ee0ec29f4\realtekapo.inf failed to install.”

This reminded me that I did some messing with the realtek audio drivers some time ago, at about the same time that windows update started to fail.

Delete the whole folder (you have to take ownership and set permissions). And after this the updates have been installing without any issue.

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