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WU_E_DS_CANTDELETE
WU_E_DS_CANTDELETE means Windows Update refused to delete an update record because one or more registered services still reference it. This protects referential integrity inside the update store.
What to do
- Do not attempt to remove update records directly from the store.
- Determine which update service still owns or references the record.
- For API callers, remove or update the service relationship through supported Windows Update APIs before requesting deletion again.
Service registration is part of the object lifetime
WUA can work with more than one registered update service, including services added through IUpdateServiceManager. A record that is still referenced by a service cannot be treated as an isolated file or row to delete. The relevant evidence is the service identifier and registration lifecycle, not the package cache directory.
For software that temporarily registers a scan package or another service, pair registration and removal in the same ownership path and retain the service ID in diagnostics. Microsoft explicitly exposes RemoveService for unregistering a service; manipulating the Windows Update data store directly bypasses those relationships and can create a different store-consistency problem.
References
References
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