It sounds from sibling comment that Windows is only booted up at irregular, far-apart times. So most likely there are weeks or months of accumulated updates all trying to go at the same time. No mention of what Windows version is running, or how old the hardware is (limited ram, slow disk, etc).

As a counterpoint anecdote, I've been using Windows 10 Pro on a half dozen both newer and older machines ever since it came out, and have never once had to re-install Windows due to a failed update (and in fact failed updates have only happened a few times, each simply requiring trying once again). But these machines are booted up and used on a regular basis.