Errant update installation of KB5012170

Topic

New Reply

[Bob99]

Well, I tried to install it AFTER all of the other month’s patches were successfully installed and I’d successfully rebooted my machine and cleaned up the drive afterwards. BUT, it didn’t work, throwing the now-infamous error code of 0x800f0322. It also now shows in WU as a failed update attempt and has WU saying that it will retry later. I also now have a “Retry now” button in WU.

I promptly used wushowhide to hide the offending update and attempted the techniques described in AKB2000013 to purge the WU cache. TO NO AVAIL. I’ve been able to stop the wuausvc and set it to “disabled” for the startup type but, upon rebooting, it has automatically started again!

So, I believe that I need to now go into the Software Distribution directory and dump some files and/or folders. Problem is, I can’t remember exactly which ones at this time. I believe that dumping the correct files in that folder will also eliminate the failed installation attempt from WU and render it happy again, saying that I’m all up to date.

@PKCano , @joep517 or other MVPs, can you please refresh my memory on which files/folders in the \Windows\SoftwareDistribution directory I need to delete to get rid of this failed update attempt?

P.S. I’ve already tried just deleting the contents of the SoftwareDistribution\Download folder (after stopping the wuausvc) to no avail.

EDIT: OK, I found the post from Susan on how to reset the software distribution folder, but if the miscreant update doesn’t show at all in the \system32\catroot folder or its files, do I need to delete that folder, or can I keep it? I’m just trying to get WU to not try reinstalling KB5012170.

• This topic was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by Bob99.

Reply | Quote

Replies

FIXED!!

What did I do? As I mentioned above, I dumped the entire contents of the \SoftwareDistribution\Download folder. That didn’t work on its own. Then I tried rolling back to a known good restore point that I created after successfully installing and rebooting from the normal monthly updates. That was successful, but didn’t change what I was seeing from WU, that it would retry installing the failed update in the future.

Finally, after digging around some more, I found a reference to using the “Pause Updates” feature to sort of reset what you see in Windows Update after getting and hiding an unwanted download that still showed up in WU. Well, I took the plunge, and IT WORKED! WU went from telling me that it had a problem installing an update and that it would keep trying later to telling me that I’m all up to date. The failed update was also showing up in my update history, but after doing the pause updates trick, it no longer shows up there. It’s as if the event simply disappared from WU’s history completely.

In a nutshell, here’s what I wound up doing. All of it is what probably produced the results that worked.

1. After the update failed, I immediately used wushowhide to hide the miscreant update, in this case KB5012170. After hiding it, I followed PK’s long-standing advice and went into the “show hidden updates” side of wushowhide to make sure it was there.
2. I then found the cab file within the \SoftwareDistribution\Download folder and deleted it, along with the other contents of that folder.
3. Tried the steps in AKB2000013 that had worked for me in the past, but didn’t work for me this time. The Windows Update service didn’t stay disabled for me upon rebooting the computer like it’s supposed to, despite repeated efforts.
4. Successfully rolled back to a known good restore point, even though it didn’t change what I was seeing within WU.
5. With the update still showing as hidden in wushowhide, and with WU still griping that it had failed to install an update but would keep trying again, I attempted clicking the “Pause updates” button. This resulted in WU saying that updates had been paused for 7 days. After a couple of moments, I clicked the button that now said “Resume updates” and WU immediately started scanning for updates. After a bit (maybe a minute or so) it finished its check, telling me I was fully up to date.
6. I rebooted and did the same thing again just to make sure, and the same thing happened…WU told me I’m fully up to date.

I hope this helps someone else out of the same potentially sticky situation.

Reply | Quote

On a final note, as I stated in one of my posts within the last week or two, since KB5012170 failed yet again, it is hereby sentenced to a permanent place in purgatory until such time as I change this system to UEFI from Legacy BIOS settings. At that time, I’ll also enable TPM 2.0 on my CPU, convert my SSD from MBR to GPT and enable secure boot as well. After all of that has been successfully completed, only then will I allow KB5012170 out of purgatory.

Until then, at least it has KB4023057 to keep it company! 

Reply | Quote