Where does Update Assistant Download and Store Windows 10 Setup Files?
Whenever Microsoft releases a new feature update for Windows 10 (such as November Update, Anniversary Update, Creators Update or recently released Fall Creators Update), it provides an official tool to easily upgrade existing Windows 10 machines to the new Windows 10 version. This tool is called as Windows 10 Update Assistant.
The Update Assistant tool keeps the installed programs, apps, personal files and custom user settings. It upgrades the old Windows 10 version to the new version automatically.
Its a very good tool for Windows 10 users who don’t want to wait for Windows 10 feature update to arrive via Windows Update which may take long time up to several months. You can immediately install the new feature update in your Windows 10 machine with the help of Update Assistant tool.
Many people asks us many questions regarding the Update Assistant tool such as does the Update Assistant download full ISO file of Windows 10? What is the size of Windows 10 setup ISO downloaded by the Update Assistant? Where are the Windows 10 setup files stored by Update Assistant?
To answer all these questions, today I decided to create this topic.
I did a research on one of my Windows 10 machines. I upgraded it to latest feature update using Update Assistant and following are my observations which will help you in getting all your doubts cleared:
Windows 10 Update Assistant downloads the full Windows 10 setup files to your machine so the file size may be 3-4 GB depending upon the edition of Windows such as 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64).
When you run Update Assistant tool and click on “Update Now” button, it checks for hardware compatibility issues and once it finds everything ok, it starts downloading Windows 10 setup files and shows the percentage of download progress.
Behind the scenes, it creates a new folder “Windows10Upgrade” in C: drive which contains several files. The Update Assistant starts downloading Windows 10 setup files in form of a .ESD file which is stored in the same “Windows10Upgrade” folder.
The file size increases every second as the file is being downloaded by Update Assistant.
But the ESD file is kept in this folder temporarily. As soon as the complete ESD file is downloaded (when the download progress reaches to 80% approx.), the ESD file is extracted to following folder:
C:$GetCurrentMedia
This folder contains full setup files of Windows 10 which can be used to install Windows 10 in any other machine.
But there is a problem!
The Update Assistant deletes this “Media” folder very soon after copying the files to required directories. So if you want to take a backup of Windows 10 setup files, immediately copy the “C:$GetCurrentMedia” folder as soon as its created.
Once you copy the folder, you have the full setup of Windows 10 latest feature update which can be installed in any other machine. You can also create bootable USB drive to clean install Windows 10 in other machines.
How to Create Bootable USB Drive of Windows Setup without Using Any Software?
List of Freeware to Create Bootable USB Drive to Install Windows and Linux
You can also manually download Windows 10 full offline ISO file officially from Microsoft as mentioned in following tutorials:
[Tip] Get Direct Download Links of Windows 10 Offline ISO Files from Microsoft
Download Latest Windows 10 Setup ISO for Clean Install or Upgrade