alternative 3.8 install

Can anyone suggest a way to get the 3.8 update installed?
I have tried the auto-update and it doesn’t work for me. Never runs, just leaves temp files on the server. It’s 6.1 mb right, how long could it take? Plugins de-activated, or not. I followed the manual install instructions to the letter with plugins off and still have files that exist to be over written even though the wp-includes and wp-admin directories have been removed. That choice I wasn’t ready for. There is no nag/.maintenance file to be found to remove and start over after, thankfully I had copies of the directories removed to replace and piece back the install/3.7.1 version of my site. Looking for ideas to get the update done. Anybody think of anything. One thing I questioned, does it make a difference where I do this? On my host server there is a mysite domain.com folder/directory associated with the admin – all the files, and another duplicate of the same under public_html associated with “root”. Will anything be different in either directory install.
my site/blog url is http://electronicsmain.com, that info is always requested but I don’t know how it might help. Would appreciate any creative ideas, Thanks