The Windows Media Creation Tool can be used to install Windows 11/10 or upgrade to a newer version of Windows. While it runs through smoothly on most occasions, there may be times when it runs into problems. At such times you may see error messages like:
- There was a problem starting setup
- There was a problem running this tool
- Something happened.
This may be accompanied with error codes: 0x80080005 – 0x90016, 0x800704dd – 0x90016, 0xc1800103 – 0x90002, 0x80070002 – 0x20016 or 0x80070456 – 0xA0019.
Windows Media Creation Tool Error
If you have faced a problem running this tool or starting setup, before you try once again, here are a few things you want to take a look at:
1] Check your USB size
Make sure you are using a USB which is 8GB or more
2] Flush the Software Distribution folder
Delete the contents of the SoftwareDistribution folder.
3] Disable your security software
Disable temporarily your antivirus software.
4] Free up Disk space
Use Disk Cleanup to free up Disk Space.
5] Check status of Windows Services
Make sure that the following required Windows Services are set to the following Startup types.
- Background Intelligent Transfer Service – Manual
- IKE and AuthIP IPsec Keying Modules – Automatic (Trigger Start)
- Server – Automatic
- TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper – Manual (Trigger Start)
- Windows Update – Manual (Trigger Start)
- Workstation – Automatic.
You could even manually start all the services before you start using the Media Creation Tool.
6] Check for the presence of $Windows.~BT & $Windows.~WS folders
Delete $Windows.~BT & $Windows.~WS folders if they are present on your system.
7] Run Windows Update Troubleshooter
Run Windows Update Troubleshooter. This has been known to help.
Having done this, see if you are able to run the Windows Media Creation Tool successfully now.
If it does not help, check if your USB has been formatted using NTFS. If it has been, maybe you could reformat it using the FAT32 system and try again.
We hope this post helps you resolve the issue where your Windows Media Creation Tool is not working.
All the best!
Does not work!
Actually most likely whats going on is the tool has problems reading the usb storage size dosn’t matter if it’s 8gb, 20gb, or anything. It just in general has been having problems calculating properly “windows 10 media tool gathers usb info via computer”. So if there are a bunch of security tools on your computer it might be blocking the media tool from gathering the necessary info it needs. simply download as a iso image and use windows 7 dvd/usb tool and it will install no problems. The DVD/USB tool reads the usb and gets the storage size from the usb witch if formatted properly will always state it’s exact size via 8gb being 8gb, not 20gb to unattainable because the media creation tool wasn’t programmed properly. Just another stiuation where you fix Microsoft with more Microsoft :)
download as a iso file and use windows 7 DVD/USB tool it will instal no problems :) 12% faster than with media creation tool to because it has a fast verification process.