Here is what you do when you get the famous “(80073712)” error while trying to apply Windows Updates.

Open a command prompt with Run As Administrator and run those commands one by one. You can also paste them all into a batch file, and run it with Administrator privileges;

net stop wuauserv
cd %systemroot%\SoftwareDistribution
ren Download Download.old
net start wuauserv
net stop bits
net start bits
net stop cryptsvc
cd %systemroot%\system32
ren catroot2 catroot2old
net start cryptsvc