Microsoft Updates

General Topics
1

This is probably the wrong place to post this, but I am at my wit’s end trying to get this problem solved, and I’ve completely run out of ideas and I don’t know where to look. Certainly not over at Microsoft’s web site, as I’ve been there and exhausted their possible solutions to no avail.

Basically, I moved, and was offline for about a week. A few days ago I was back online, and I had the usual alert of new Windows updates that were released on Nov 11, 2014. There were 14 updates. 3 of the updates installed without incident, and 11 of the updates fail to install. I’ve tried to install updates 1 at a time, as well as just bulk. I’ve run utilities from MS that supposedly restore file permissions, and that hasn’t helped.

I run Windows 7, 64-bit. IE11. The updates are mostly security updates, and I have no idea what they fix.

The updates that successfully installed were KB915597, KB2978125, and KB89030.

The updates that fail to install are:
KB3003057
KB2978120
KB2991963
KB2992611
KB2993958
KB3002885
KB3003743
KB3005607
KB3006226
KB3010788
KB3008627

Among the other things I have tried has been to disable Avast for short periods to see if that was somehow blocking the updates. That didn’t seem to help.

I use Windows Firewall. Not my favorite firewall, but it shouldn’t be blocking MS updates.

At the beginning of the month, I received excellent help here on one of the forums with ridding my system of some infections. I trust that none of the options I was directed to do for cleaning my system and keeping it clean are related.

Regards,
Steve Tabler

2

The problem was eventually fixed, but took a lot of work and persistence. Final solutions including running the Microsoft Fix It tool more than once, and the Microsoft System Readiness tool more than once. Also, I un-hid old updates and applied them. Generally, if I install an update that causes an issue so bad that I have to uninstall it or use system restore, the I will hide the update so I don’t blindly install it again at a future date.

3

Some things I’ve found helpful when there are problems installing many updates:

  1. Don’t install all updates at once. (Try 10 at a time )
  2. If the updates are downloaded through the Control panel, I generally turn off all on-demand scanners while the updates are happening.
    I just went through updating 80 updates on a system that had been off-line since Aug. without problems.
4

Sorry you’ve had issues with the December 2014 Windows Updates. You, however, were not the only one.

See: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_update/windows-update-kb3004394-issues/ace25277-7f65-4486-bc44-c1b106907a18

It now has 174 replies, so qualifies as a hot topic.

On page 16 is a link to the fix that fixes the original fix and also uninstalls it here: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_update/windows-update-kb3004394-issues/ace25277-7f65-4486-bc44-c1b106907a18?page=16&tm=1418365071487 Go to the ninth post by Susan Bradley to find this link or go directly here: http://support2.microsoft.com/kb/3024777/en-us?sd=rss

Only some Win 7 (64-bit) systems and some Win Servers 2008 R2 were affected but symptoms were all pretty much the same. Thread is now 18 pages long if you care to read it in total.

[EDIT:] The last link has the actual file one can download to their system (Take care to select the correct operating system version and either the x86 or x64 bit version that applies to your system) and run it offline if one wishes to do so.