My Dell W10 laptop hasn't been used for about a year, so I attempted to use Windows Update to bring it up to speed: 1) it was stuck on "updates are available/downloading 0%)" for several hours; 2) when it finally "finished", there were 5 updates listed; 3) when I selected download, they quickly disappeared one-by-one, and the computer went back to step 1 again. This has happened numerous times now.
When I look in the c:/windows/software distribution folder, I can see the 5 update folders there; so it appears that the updates are downloading but not installing. Strangely, my installed updates screen shows no update history/blank.
I even tried reinstalling W10 using a flash drive created on another W10 laptop. It installed fine, but the problem still exists. One strange thing about the reinstall though: the other computer was at 14.343.351, but the problem laptop still shows 14.343.0; shouldn't it have updated to the .351 level with the reinstall?
The update troubleshooter did not find any problems.
How do I solve this Windows Update problem?