Windows was unable to locate required install file boot.wim

When you try to install or upgrade Windows 10 using setup.exe from C:\$Windows.~BT, you may see an error message:

Windows was unable to locate required installation file [boot.wim]. Verify that the installation is valid and restart the installation. Error code: 0x80070002.

This post will show you how to resolve the issue.

A .wim file is short for a Windows Image File. These files are used to store all the boot images on a Windows computer. Examples of boot images include Windows Setup images, Operating System images, etc. There have been incidents of users reporting the absence of a boot.wim file. This error generally shows up when the user is trying to upgrade his/her Windows setup from one OS to another. In the presence of this error, upgrading can become irksome, and thus, today we will discuss some of the workarounds that users can implement in case Windows is unable to locate the boot.wim file.

Windows is unable to locate the required install file [boot.wim]

The first thing you should do is check if your computer has an Antivirus application installed and running at the time of Windows installation. It is possible for the presence of this Antivirus file to be hindering the procedure and resulting in the error in question.

If you do have an Antivirus running on your PC, you are advised to disable it before beginning the installation process. You should note that this is a temporary measure and that they should enable their Virus Protection back on as soon as the installation process is over to ensure that their computer isn’t affected by any Malware in the future.

Having done that, we also recommend that you change this Registry setting

Much like for any other bug or error out there, it is the Registry Editor that has the answer. Certain tweaks and modifications in the Registry Editor should get you back on track.

You should know that any changes made in the Registry Editor are capable of rendering irrevocable damage to their computer, if not executed properly. This is why users should act cautiously and back up their existing Registry before making any changes to it.

Now open Registry Editor and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\OSUpgrade

The OSUpgrade key should exist but if is missing, you need to create it.

Now select OSUpgrade and right-click on the blank portion on the right side of the window and from the ‘New’ option, create a new D-WORD (32-bit) value.

Name it as AllowOSUpgrade and set its value as 1.

Restart your computer and try and see if it works.

We hope that the above-mentioned solution was able to help you solve your problem and that you are now able to successfully install or upgrade your Windows OS. If it did not help you, you could try to use Media Creation Tool and create bootable media. This would allow you to download and install Windows 10 onto your flash drive that you can then use to install on your computer.