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Unable to install updates unless battery is charged to 40% - Why?!

I've been hunting around for a solution to this ridiculous issue where Windows Update won't install certain updates unless the laptop battery is charged to 40%, even if the laptop doesn't contain a battery.


So far, the useless replies I've found fall into 3 categories:

  • The respondents didn't actually read the OP's question, and suggested Windows Update fixes. e.g., removing SoftwareDistribution.

  • The respondents suggest fixing the battery.

  • The respondents assert that it's a fail-safe and there's no workaround.


Am I to understand that Microsoft no longer support updating desktop PCs because they don't have a battery?
Should we infer from this that Microsoft think desktop owners are capable of deciding whether to update their firmware or not, but laptop owners are not sufficiently competent to make their own decisions?

Somebody out there knows how to bypass this - care to share?

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Hi Krexis

I am Dave, I will help you with this.

Can you please provide a bit more detail, I an not clear on your situation, are you using a laptop or a PC, and if you are using a laptop, is your battery not working and if so is the battery still in the laptop or has it been removed?
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MSI GV72 - 17.3", i7-8750H (Hex Core), 32GB DDR4, 4GB GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, 256GB NVMe M2, 2TB HDD

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Hi DaveM121,

Thanks for your response.

As I say, the issue only occurs with laptops, not desktops, as they do not have batteries
I have a laptop that does not contain a battery, it is always in a docking station which is connected to mains power.
I've seen the battery charge level issue crop up a few times with drivers/firmware/Windows version updates. In this particular instance, it is an HP firmware update.

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Thank you or that information.

1
Open Device Manager

Is there a batteries section in there?

If there is please provide a screenshot of that window

2
I need some more information about that laptop, click your Start button, then just type msinfo and press Enter, please provide a screenshot of the resulting System Information window.
___________________________________________________________________

Power to the Developer!

MSI GV72 - 17.3", i7-8750H (Hex Core), 32GB DDR4, 4GB GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, 256GB NVMe M2, 2TB HDD

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Here you go.

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Thank you for that information,

That laptop does have a battery inside it.

If your battery is not working and blocking updates, then the only working solutions I have seen is to either remove the battery so that Windows thinks it is a PC, and it can be difficult these days to remove the battery, because they are internal, not like older laptop batteries that clip out.

Or right click and disable (not uninstall) those two devices in the batteries section, restart (not shot down) the laptop and that might fool Windows into thinking it is a PC with no battery.
___________________________________________________________________

Power to the Developer!

MSI GV72 - 17.3", i7-8750H (Hex Core), 32GB DDR4, 4GB GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, 256GB NVMe M2, 2TB HDD

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Krexis did this work for you ? As i'm in a similar situation , I have a Surface Pro3 which the battery failed on it right after the warranty period but I have had it in a dock since then. The system performance continues to degrade as it requires more updates (search index issues , audio issues), I'd love to be able to trick the system into letting me update somehow.

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I am in similar situation as well, Disabling this in Device Manager helps me to get the update. just sharing for other people in similar situation

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Apologies but I missed the update notification. I stopped looking here after DaveM121 insisted that I have a battery in my laptop, even though I had physically taken it out myself when it started to swell and threatened to break the case. I caught myself as I was about to open up the laptop to upload a picture of the absence of a battery, and thought, “F that!”

Jhames said it worked in a similar situation. Ultimately, if your battery is dead or gone and your machine sees it as a phantom limb, it won’t cost you anything to disable it for testing purposes - you can always enable it again afterwards.

As luck would have it, this cropped up again today in an even more ridiculous manner. I connected a mains-powered Dell Thunderbolt dock to my laptop to update its firmware, and the Dell update app refused to let me execute unless the battery was at more than 40% 🤬🤬🤬

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I ended up wiping windows and installing Ubuntu instead

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LOL that should be the natural end to every single question on this microsoft forum. “Here’s a completely ridiculous problem I have”. Reply: “Read this boilerplate article that you’ve already seen 5 times. I hope my complete lack of information and demonstration of critical thought helped”. Two weeks later: “Yea I installed linux”

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Last updated June 8, 2024 Views 4,837 Applies to: