14 DAY TRIAL // The most recent Windows 10 19H1 preview build released by Microsoft fails to install on a small number of devices, returning error code 0xca00a004 in Windows Update.
While Microsoft is yet to acknowledge this bug, I see isolated reports here and there that Windows 10 build 18290 is affected. I’m getting the issue on the same build, as you can see in the screenshot attached to the article.
The problem has also been reported in the Feedback Hub, though it’s worth noting that searching for this error code on Google doesn’t return any results. Microsoft is yet to acknowledge it, but on the other hand, there are more than 40 upvotes in the Feedback Hub at this point.
The issue basically makes it impossible to update from Windows 10 build 18290 to build 18298, which was released earlier this week.
Only a few devices likely impacted
The process starts correctly and completes the “Getting ready” process normally, but fails during the installation task at a random progress level. The error code is the following:
There were problems installing some updates, but we’ll try again later.
Windows 10 Insider Preview 18298.1000 (rs_prerelease) – Error 0xca00a004
At this point, there are no workarounds as to how users impacted by this issue can resolve it and update to Windows 10 build 18290. Running the update troubleshooter doesn’t make any difference, and the typical rebooting and restarting the update service workarounds do not repair it.
It’s also not known how many devices are impacted, but given the rather small number of reports, I think this is happening on just a few computers. The latest Insider update also installed correctly on my other testing machine, with no issue whatsoever.
It remains to be seen if Microsoft acknowledges the bug, and we’ve reached out to the company to ask for more information and we’ll update the article with more info if provided.