Windows update does not function while in Audit mode in Windows 8.1.

That’s a nice little tidbit of information that I would have liked to have known before trying nearly everything I could to troubleshoot why it wasn’t working.

Chris123NT has very clear instructions to get around this limitation and apply the updates. I have copied the instructions here. Thank you, Chris123NT.

  1. Download the Windows Update Powershell Module
  2. Copy the module folder to %WINDIR%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules
  3. Run PowerShell ISE as Administrator
  4. Run the following commands:
Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass
Import-Module PSWindowsUpdate
Get-WUInstall

The rest should be automated with some prompts.