Don’t delete catroot2 unless necessary; renaming is safer.
Run manually from an elevated command prompt:
Aggressive antivirus programs, registry cleaners, or outdated drivers can interfere with the Windows Update agent's normal operations. Recommended Solutions Why Does Wuauclt.exe Crash BEST
For the best forensic insight, enable Windows Update logging. A "crash" without logs is a guess. Enable verbose logging via:
Microsoft Safety Scanner or Malwarebytes. Don’t delete catroot2 unless necessary; renaming is safer
net stop wuauserv net stop bits ren C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old net start wuauserv net start bits
If no crash – your update database was the problem. Don’t delete catroot2 unless necessary
Share your specific error code in the comments – we’ll help decode it.