This paper proposes an improved rigid multibody model for the dynamic analysis of the planetary gearbox in a wind turbine. The improvements mainly include choosing the inertia frame as the reference frame of the carrier, the ring, and the sun and adding a new degree of freedom for each planet. An element assembly method is introduced to build the model, and a time-varying mesh stiffness model is presented. A planetary gear study case is employed to verify the validity of the improved model. Comparisons between the improvement model and the traditional model show that the natural characteristics are very close; the improved model can obtain the right equivalent moment of inertia of the planetary gear in the transient simulation, and all the rotation speeds satisfy the transmission relationships well; harmonic resonance and resonance modulation phenomena can be found in their vibration signals. The improved model is applied in a multistage gearbox dynamics analysis to reveal the prospects of the model. Modal analysis and transient analysis with and without time-varying mesh stiffness considered are conducted. The rotation speeds from the transient analysis are consistent with the theory, and resonance modulation can be found in the vibration signals.