Report On Multiple Windows Update Failures from Dec 2018 On

My Windows 7 PRO SP-1 64-Bit system has been running for nine years on my custom-built PC, the pertinent features of which are documented in the first attached file, with this singularly important distinction. My system now has a 1TB System C: SSD with only the system and application installations and one minor user whose User Profile (the base of all user libraries and other files) is entirely on the C: drive, and two “regular users” whose User Profiles are defined on a 1TB Winchester E: drive. This configuration was chosen in part because nine years ago SSD drives were small and very expensive. I had only an 80GB Windows partition on my original system which could not accommodate regular users’ storage requirements. (On Jan 10 2019 I replaced it with a new 1TB SSD, which necessitated running as the one “C: Only” user to perform the Windows Partition copy.)
On or about December 2018 Windows Update, which had been functioning essentially perfectly up to that point, began to fail on almost every update with various reported hexadecimal codes including: 8050800C, 80073701, 80070002, 80246007, 80600C00, 800F0902 and finally 64C. Usually these would fail in the initial update staging process, but one, the 2019-01 Windows 64-Bit Quality Rollup, failed later after the reboot when attempting to “Configure the Update” during startup.

My first attempt for technical support occurred on Dec 28, 2018, the log from which is included in the 2nd attached file, “Making a Win 7.1 Installation Disk From a Win 7.1 ISO File.docx”. Using that procedure I was able to construct a Win 7 SP-1 64-Bit installation USB memory stick, but I didn’t run it. Instead I found an on-line product that claimed to be able to perform a full Upgrade installation, directly online, that would replace all the system executables from their current library which contains those for Windows 7 PRO SP1 64-Bit: Reimage Limited’s Windows Scan & Repair. I ran this full repair (an hour or more) which claimed to run successfully.

The result of that run produced a bootable system without any change in the E: drive users’ private environments. However, the Reimage libraries were somewhat old, and a subsequent Windows Update run found about 20 important updates. All these issued before the 2018-12 and subsequent updates before were successfully installed, but the same old culprits failed in the same old ways. I was left essentially back where I was when started trying to fix this problem.

Early in February I asked for help again from Microsoft Technical Support, where two separate technicians downloaded a somewhat newer Win 7 PRO SP-1 63-Bit disk image ISO files and converted it to an install folder with a setup.exe file and the installation components, using a Beta-release copy of a product called WinRAR. However, in both attempts, a System Upgrade re-install could not be done because of the following error
To upgrade Windows, the Users, Program Files, and Windows directories need to be on the same partition. Upgrading when these directories are not on the same partition is not supported. Moving these directories so that they are on the same partition is also not supported. You can choose to install a new copy of Windows 7 Professional instead, but this is different from an upgrade, and does not keep your files, settings, and programs. You’ll need to reinstall any programs using the original installation discs or files. To save your files before installing Windows, back them up to an external location such as a CD, DVD, or external hard drive. To install a new copy of Windows 7 Professional, click the Back button in the upper left-hand corner, and select “Custom (advanced)”.

This is also true if I attempt an Upgrade installation from the bootable memory stick I made back in December.

So now If I want to continue to try to fix this Windows Update problem, I am stuck with blowing away my current system with a full start-over installation, eliminating all the application installs I did over nine years, some of what I can’t replace because I do not have complete original installation media and the application companies no longer exist. That is not a worthwhile price for me to pay for continued Windows 7 updates, and furthermore I’m not convinced that it would succeed in curing this problem and might well introduce more serious problems (such as not being able to run important applications).

I cannot upgrade this system to Windows 10 because I rely on the Windows XP Virtual Machine that was installed at purchase time, which runs only on Windows 7. I use this for a vital database application with a RDBMS that runs only on Windows XP. I have other reasons for not wanting to upgrade to a newer Windows release but those are not pertinent to this discussion. Moreover, various pertinent online forums show that other people are having this same problem, some even on Windows 10.

I find it interesting that the Microsoft technicians were not interested in the contents of my C:\Windows\Logs\CBS folder, which this forum states is required information for help with this problem. (BTW: I have run several Windows partition and system files validity checkers, and they all find my system perfectly intact.)
I'm not really asking for help because I believe I can live without Windows updates. Windows 7 is ten years old and a totally mature OS; no one is enhancing it or fixing bugs, other than plugging malware opportunities. Careful use of my system and robust anti-malware protection software is likely enough protection for my private small system. My purpose in writing this is to emphasize what people also experiencing this problem have concluded on other forums: that Microsoft does not really know what is causing this problem and can’t fix it when users are defined with User Profiles on other partitions, short of the nuclear option of blowing out the Windows partition completely and laying down a virgin copy of Windows 7.

You might want to give this a try in order to install updates-

Download WSUS Offline Update - MajorGeeks

Thanks, but the documentation PDF and the format of other files implies that these are Linux shell scripts and related programs, I don't have Linux on this computer, or any other for that matter.

It's been used by many people to install updates in Win 7 when Windows Update has failed. I wouldn't have suggested it if that isn't the case. It's up to you, whether or not you want to run it.

Unzipped USUS Offline Updater and ran it. It helped some but did not fix all the Windows Update problems. It was unclear how install the updates that it found and downloaded - the main window just stops after preparing the updates. Had to go to the site FAQ section to get some hints (Update....cmd in the "cmd" sub-folder). Thanks for the help.

Did you get all the updates installed?

Sometimes, these kind of programs use Linux scripts to prevent interference from the operating system. It's like, I have a backup program that will let me restore backups of my operating system using a bootable disc. The bootable disc uses Linux because the operating system can't be running (it needs to be locked out) when the restore is in progress.

No, unfortunately the same set of 4 Important and 2 Optional updates remain uninstalled. I'm going to try to attach JPGs of both categories, but I'm having trouble getting uploads to a post to work. (I created a thread in the "General" forum about it; haven;t got a response.) This time the uploads worked..

If you try to run the quality-roll up by itself (no other updates), does it install?

No. it fails after the system restart during the startup "configuring updates" phase, reboots and rolls back the changes.

I ran a simpler member of the "gang of six": Update for Windows 7 for x64-Based Systems (KB308149). It failed with an 80070490 error. I will upload two JPGs of the failure screen and the History screen, and hopefully a ZIP file of the %WinDir%\Logs\CBS.log file that show where it failed, somewhere around file record 195. This CBS.log contains only that try (I wiped it out after terminating the TrustedUpdater.exe process and rebooting). It appears that all these update attempts are failing by not finding something the updater wants in the update packages. - ERROR_NOT_FOUND.

I had to truncate the CBS.log file before ZIPping it; otherwise the ZIP file far exceeds the upload space limit of 8.95 MB. Hopefully any truly useful information is still in the file, in case anyone wants to look.



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