Win10 Windows Update stuck at 0% downloading updates

All the hype with Windows 10 and still something as elementary as Windows Update keeps getting corrupted. Common failure appears to be it properly detecting required updates but then getting stuck at 0% when downloading them.

Microsoft has troubleshooting tool but that was only able to tell me WU is broken rather than fix it as claimed. Not even re-installing entire Windows over existing install would help. Clean install would've of course solved it but I was not interested in setting up everything again to my likings.

So let's do it manually. Stop all affected services.

net /y stop wuauserv
net /y stop cryptsvc
net /y stop bits
net /y stop msiserver

Now you'll probably end up with unstoppable wuauserv service. Even when you do manage to kill it it'll autostart preventing removal of corrupted softwaredistribution folder. Here's how to work around this.

net /y stop wuauserv & taskkill /F /FI "SERVICES eq wuauserv" & ren c:\windows\softwaredistribution softwaredistribution.bad & ren c:\windows\system32\catroot2 catroot2.bad

And restart them.

net start wuauserv
net start cryptsvc
net start bits
net start msiserver