Solved Failure Configuring Windows Updates Message While PC is Restarting

[Efdy]

Efdy, I hope you can write back / report whether doing a repair install can allow you to install those Rollup updates successfully. I failed the April Rollup (after failing the March ones).

Oh, okay. It will be a while for me though because that "Repair Install" tutorial thread has over 200 pages of Q&A, and I'm only to page 29 so far. Good luck.

 

[kinyip]

Efdy, you are reading Repair Install - Windows 7 Help Forums ,right ? I thought you just follow the instructions at the first page ?! You don't need to read all 200+ pages of correspondences, do you ?

 

[Efdy]

Hello, kinyip. I reckon you're right, but so far reading on past the tutorial itself has helped me understand the repair install procedure better and reduced the number of questions I have about preparing to try it.

I didn't mean do do anything wrong by marking this thread solved. I'll switch it back.

 

[Snick]

Here's a Video Repair Install by Brian at Britec Computers UK.
Here's a dissertation on M$ updates.

March updates for the most-part were botched by M$, resulting in many computers unable to install them. Updated that followed have cumulative effect, i.e. if you couldn't install last months, this months will provide last months plus this months.


Repair install is basically the same as regular install, except you are upgrading to the same OS as you have installed and it has to be performed from withing windows. It simply replaces the OS on your computer with the same, correcting errors and system file corruption.

Make sure you have your 25 character product key, if you repair install without the key your windows will not activate.

 

[Efdy]

Thank you for the information, Snick. Yes, I have my product key. I already used it to download the ISO file that includes SP1 from a Microsoft web page.

 

[Snick]

No problem Efdy, that's why we're all here to help each other and hopefully learn a few things along the way.

 

[Brds7t7]

Hello Efdy,

After you've done a repair install, you'll notice Windows Update will be broken. It'll just sit on "Checking for updates" for hours.

To fix this, take a look at the instructions I posted in post 6 here:

Win 7 Updates Stuck on Downloading % For Three Days!! - Windows 7 Help Forums

This will get your Windows Updates back up and running.

Let us know how you get on with the repair.

 

[Snick]

The broken win update is due to a server IP address change, if you download the latest update agent from M$ catalog it will work as expected.

Additionally, here's how to install cumulative update.

How to Update Windows 7 All at Once with Microsoft’s Convenience Rollup

Prerequisites are required per instruction on webpage. It will not install every update to date but a large percentage of them.

 

[Brds7t7]

Strange, I've never got Windows update working on a new install over the last year, even with the newest update agent. v7.6.7600.320 was pushed out in 2012 and they didn't fix the issue until the Update Rollup in 2016.

What are the steps you're taking to get that working Snick? As I've tried it in many VMs and can't get it to ever pick up updates.

Perhaps MS has made some changes their end?

 

[Snick]

With fresh repair install, it usually takes from 1-4 hours to start receiving updates without current UA. Sometimes, I've recommended that OPs change their power options to sleep never and call it a night. When they access their machine next morning, they have updates. Haven't had an issue with Win updates on repair install, after installing latest update agent. Hope I didn't shoot myself in the foot with that statement.
Don't have any suggestions at this time. Adding it to my research list.

 

[Brds7t7]

Good point actually, as all mine have been fresh installs in VMs not repairs. I haven't actually done a Repair Install since around 2013 though.

Last time I tried it with that WUA version in a clean install VM, all it did was sat at checking for updates for 2+ hours and ramped up the RAM usage to 1.5GB. I usually just kill it at that point. With the update rollup I can pick them all up within 10-15 minutes every time on the first run, and it never goes above around 300MB RAM usage.

I'll try doing a Repair Install in a VM as you've got me curious now!

 

[Snick]

Brds7t7, if you every observe task manager RAM usage as you install M$ updates, the updates are stored in ram, all of them until the download process completes, if you don't get an out of error message that is, then installation starts. Before the M$ offering of cumulative updates, I recommended that OPs check about half of the available 200+ updates if they have 4 GB of usable ram, always on x32 as it cannot access more than 4GB.
I was just pondering your post. I have not tried installing updates, or repair install in a VM, although I do have VMware Workstation Player on my desktop machine. I'll give it a try as well. You may have to change a setting or two in your VM to access M$ update server, not sure though.
Which VM are you running?

 

[Efdy]

Thank you for the information about helping Windows Update function properly after doing a repair install.

 

[Snick]

No problem Efdy, always glad to be able to assist others.
Repair Install is pretty much same as Fresh/Clean install, except it is performed from within running windows, i.e. not from DVD or USB by accessing them from BIOS. As I stated previously, you are using Upgrade, which replaces existing OS and hopefully corrupt/error causing settings to be overwritten by clean version of Win OS.

If, after you perform installing prerequisites and convenience updates, you notice a delay in Win update locating updates to download and install, just be patient, sometimes, as I can personally attest to, it takes a while, and sometimes, quite a while for windows to locate available updates. This is not a permanent situation, usually being a time or two before Win update functions as it should.

Happy Computing!

 

[kinyip]

Hi,

Just to type a bit of my "journey" ... finally successful.

I was wondering whether to do "Repair Install". But then, I probably found the culprit that screwed those Mar./Apr. security/rollup Windows Updates. In “Device Manager”, on the the 3rd item “Computer”, one’d see “ACPI x64 based PC” and if I clicked on "Properties", I’d see that the “driver” seemed wrong as the “provider” was "unknown". And usually when one does “update driver”, it should say that you’ve already got the updated driver (like in another Windows 7 machine of mine). But for this in my laptop, it didn’t and when it tried to install the fix but failed with “The data is invalid”. I've uploaded the ACPI x64-based PC.JPG for you to see.

I thought about checking the above because in the c:\windows\CBS.log (where the update error messages are), around the 13 percent, I saw :
==============================================================================
Progress: UI message updated. Operation type: Update. Stage: 1 out of 1. Percent progress: 11.
2018-04-16 14:32:33, Info CBS INSTALL index: 1, phase: 2, result 0, inf: acpi.inf
2018-04-16 14:32:34, Info CBS Progress: UI message updated. Operation type: Update. Stage: 1 out of 1. Percent progress: 12.
INSTALL index: 0, phase: 3, result 5, inf: machine.inf
2018-04-16 14:32:44, Info CBS Progress: UI message updated. Operation type: Update. Stage: 1 out of 1. Percent progress: 13.
2018-04-16 14:32:44, Info CBS DriverUpdateInstallUpdates failed [HRESULT = 0x80070005 - E_ACCESSDENIED]
2018-04-16 14:32:44, Error CBS Doqe: Failed installing driver updates [HRESULT = 0x80070005 - E_ACCESSDENIED]
2018-04-16 14:32:44, Info CBS Perf: Doqe: Install ended.
2018-04-16 14:32:44, Info CBS Failed installing driver updates [HRESULT = 0x80070005 - E_ACCESSDENIED]
=================================================================================================================

acpi.inf, machine.inf etc. are all the driver files. Which prompted me to check the "Device Manager".

Seeing this problem, I've convinced myself to do a "Repair Install" or "in-place upgrade install" so that I hoped to lose not too much. It took several hours to finish it. So then, at least "ACPI x64-based PC" now seems normal with "Microsoft" as the provider etc.

But then, even though other software (Microsoft Office etc.) were still there and good to use, I realized that I needed >100 or almost 200 updates to do. Which was like another day --- I separated the hundreds in a few batches

So, finally, I got to the "2018-04 Security Monthly Quality Rollup for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems (Kb4093118)" and it worked without problem, finally !

But then, I found that all the .Net Framework 4.x didn't seem to show up as installed program in "Program and Features" and I couldn't install Internet Explorer 11 (even the Windows Updates failed to update). .Net 4.x stuff are important because quite a few software/drivers depend on it and they either didn't start or might have problem etc.

I tried to install them 4.0, 4.5, 4.7 but they all failed. That Microsoft's "NetFxRepairTool.exe" again has been useless. But I've finally seen the sentence hidden in the middle of the logfile (which the installer showed you !):
======================================================
MSI (s) (F0:04) [20:17:47:679]: Product: Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7 -- A later version of Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7 is already installed.
======================================================

So, somehow, in the "Repair Install", the .NET stuff was not completely gone and the new installer saw a mark of it (in Registry ?!). A few lines above the above-mentioned lines, in the same log, I saw :
========================
MSI (s) (F0:04) [20:17:47:644]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding NEWERVERSIONDETECTED property. Its value is '{E0C7523C-686B-3EE6-8FB1-CB4339E30EDD}'.
=====================================

I then searched for "E0C7523C-686B-3EE6-8FB1-CB4339E30EDD" in the registry, I found it only in

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Products\C3257C0EB6866EE3F81BBC34933EE0DD\InstallProperties]

There, one key is LocalPackage which points to "C:\Windows\Installer\17e360.msi".

By luck, I went to execute it. And voila ! I saw "Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7.1" show up in "Programs and Features" !!! To be safe, I clicked it to do a "repair". Then, things just worked !

For the Internet Explorer 11, I almost didn't want to bother with it. But it's like a challenge. I googled and learnt that the log file is in c:\Windows\IE11_main.log. I saw the error message:
========================================
02:56.874: INFO: Process 'C:\Windows\SysNative\dism.exe /online /add-package /packagepath:C:\Windows\TEMP\IE17B66.tmp\IE11-neutral.Downloaded.cab /quiet /norestart' exited with exit code 0x800F081E (-2146498530)
02:57.124: ERROR: Neutral package installation failed (exit code = 0x800f081e (2148468766)).
==================================================================


It's not much hint but I used it to google. I came across : windows 7 - Error installing IE11 - prerequisite update KB2834140 - Super User in which the last message by Mike (answered Aug 9 '16 at 13:46) told me to install a particular Windows Update: "Platform Update for Windows 7 SP1 and Server 2008 R2 SP1 (2670838)". In fact, it's one of the very few "optional" ones that I haven't updated from Microsoft Update server (not our Lab.'s WSUS server).

After installing that 2670838, finally "Internet Explorer 11" could be installed ! It's not much to everybody else but after almost 10 failures, this is a joy !

So now, I'm a happy person.

Kin

 

[Efdy]

Wow, you can really figure out some stuff, Kin. And that looks like a lot of useful information that you posted too. Thank you very much for sharing that and for being so thorough and comprehensive about it. Congratulations on fixing your Windows Update problem.

 

[kinyip]

Cheers ! ... It's probably more useful to myself

 

[Brds7t7]

Hi Kinyip,

Glad you got it sorted out!

Yes, from past experience the Repair Install never touches .NET Framework, so that's usually left in place. It does revert back to IE8 though as that's classed as a Windows component, so IE11 gets removed when doing the repair.

Just curious, did you attempt to install IE11 when online or offline? If it's online then it "should" download the Platform update + prerequisite updates for IE11 automatically when you run the installer.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/2847882/prerequisite-updates-for-internet-explorer-11

 

[Snick]

Excellent sleuthing kinyip. Device Manager is a very useful diagnostic tool. As you have observed, sometimes failed win updates are due to corrupt/invalid entries, registry entry errors, or missing prerequisites. Quite often, some KB's are superseded and no longer relevant.

 

[kinyip]

Hi Brds7t7,

I think it was online. Because I saw that it did try to download Windows Updates before I installed "2670838". And in fact, just like the link that I referred to earlier:
windows 7 - Error installing IE11 - prerequisite update KB2834140 - Super User

I also saw in the error message in IE_main.log that it tried to download "KB2834140" etc. In fact, the nominal Windows Updates for IE11 also failed while other updates succeeded. Somehow Windows Updates (I mean, the program doing all the "windows updates" in Windows 7) didn't know ! ( I used both the Microsoft update site ... as well as our Lab.'s WSUS server. This may have screwed up things a little. )

I did wonder why nobody else (that I could find) seemed to have suffered from .NET Framework 4 after a Repair Install. ( The .NET Framework 3.x was OK. )

Kin