If the server has downloaded automatically an update (such as the SharePoint ones), which you don’t want to install, try following these steps to delete the queue:

• Open an elevated PowerShell, then run the following command

Stop-Service -Name "wuauserv"

• Open an elevated PowerShell, then run the following commands to make a backup of the folders we’re going to delete.

cd C:\

'backupwinupdate', 'backupdatastore' | %{New-Item -Name "$_" -ItemType "Directory"}

Copy-Item -Path "C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download" -Destination "C:\backupwinupdate" -Recurse
Copy-Item -Path "C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\DataStore" -Destination "C:\backupdatastore" -Recurse

• Check that the backup has been created, then proceed to delete the content of the original folders:

Get-ChildItem -Path “C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download” -Include * -File -Recurse | foreach { $_.Delete()}

Get-ChildItem -Path “C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\DataStore” -Include * -File -Recurse | foreach { $_.Delete()}

• After clearing the content, you can proceed to start Windows Update:

Start-Service -Name "wuauserv"

You’ll need to reboot at the end of this procedure.

Be sure to clean up the backup folders C:\backupwinupdate and C:\backupdatastore