Download Windows Updates
Use the Download Updates feature to gather and maintain Windows updates with ease.
The Download Updates feature helps you gather and maintain Windows updates with ease and reliability. Access it via the toolbar under Start → Tools, or the Updates page → Add → Latest online updates.
This guide covers downloading and maintaining the update files themselves. For slipstreaming them into an image - queue analysis, extraction caching and parallelism, and update store cleanup - see the Integrate Windows Updates guide.
Key Features
- Downloads the latest updates directly from Microsoft servers
- Verifies downloaded update file hashes
- Resumes interrupted downloads
- Organizes downloaded updates per Windows version
- Labels updates to help with pre-selection of recommended ones
- Multi-threaded download and hashing
Update lists are manually curated and usually updated within a few hours of release. While lists come from the NTLite server, actual updates are downloaded only from Microsoft's servers.
Supported Windows Versions
Client editions with amd64 and x86 architectures (ARM64 on Win11 24H2+):
Windows 11
- 26H1 (11.0.28000)
- 25H2 (11.0.26200)
- 24H2 (11.0.26100) - includes Server 2025
- 23H2 (10.0.22631)
- 22H2 (10.0.22621)
- 21H2 (10.0.22000)
Windows 10
- 22H2 (10.0.19045)
- 21H2 (10.0.19044) - October 2021 Update
- 21H1 (10.0.19043) - May 2021 Update
- 2009/20H2 (10.0.19042) - includes Server 20H2
- 2004/20H1 (10.0.19041) - includes Server 2004
- 1809 (10.0.17763) - includes LTSC 2019 and Server 2019
- 1607 (10.0.14393) - includes LTSB 2016 and Server 2016
Older Versions
- Windows 8.1 - includes Server 2012 R2
- Windows 7 SP1 - includes Server 2008 R2 (extended support optional)
Update Cache
Before using the Downloader, set your preferred download location under File → Settings → Update Cache directory.
You can use subfolders to organize updates. Update files can be renamed and are still properly detected. Example subdirectory names: 10.0.1803.x64, 10.0.1607.x86, 6.3.U3.x64, 6.1.SP1.x86
Operations
Verify
Verify hash-checks the Update Cache folder to detect incomplete downloads and corrupted files. It re-scans in the background each time the downloader opens, so pre-existing updates are covered without starting it by hand. Only updates from the online list support verification.
Enqueue
Adds updates to the Updates → Integration Queue for integration to the loaded image. First load a target on the Image page to enable this. Non-existing updates will be automatically downloaded before integration when Apply → Process starts.
Download
Pre-downloads selected non-existing updates without integrating them.
Trim
To easily delete unlisted and obsolete updates from the Update Cache, use File → Settings → Update Cache Trim.
For a smaller cleanup, the downloader collects every cached file no list entry claims into a collapsed Superseded / Unknown group. Right-click a selection there and choose Delete to remove those files after a confirmation. Only that group offers a delete - every other row is a download NTLite would simply fetch again.
Row States
The State column says what the row is, and the mark beside it says what is known about the file behind it. The two are independent: a downloaded file reads Downloaded whether or not its hash has been checked yet.
- Missing - listed, nothing on disk yet.
- Downloaded - the file is in the cache. A green mark means the hash was verified, a question mark means it has not been read against the expected hash yet.
- External - a file added by hand rather than from the online list, so there is no expected hash to verify against.
- Incomplete - a partial or corrupted file, marked red. The row stays selectable so it can be downloaded again.
- Verifying - the background scan is reading the file; the verdict replaces this word when it finishes.
- Existing - prefixed on an update already queued for integration.
- Installed - with an image loaded, the update is already in it.
Installed rows are greyed out and locked, so a queue cannot be filled with updates that would do nothing. This covers both hotfixes matched by identity and MSIX packages whose provisioned version on the image is already the same or newer. Cumulative updates are the exception - an already-integrated cumulative stays unlocked, since re-applying one is a legitimate manual call.
Interrupted Downloads
A download that breaks part-way is resumed rather than restarted, including across sessions - closing NTLite mid-download and coming back later continues where it stopped, with no repeat of what already arrived. Short network drops heal silently, and only a link that stays down raises a prompt.
That prompt appears once per download batch, not once per file: several updates downloading in parallel usually break together, so the answer given to the first one applies to its siblings - Retry resumes them all, Cancel stops them all.
Integrating the latest cumulative update is also the prerequisite for the Secure Boot 2023 certificate deployment - once the image carries it, the Updates page Secure Boot tab can stage the certificate offline. See the Secure Boot 2023 Migration guide.