Internet Explorer cumulative updates fail to install

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IE Cumulative Updates fail to install

There are three PCs in the house: my Win 8 basic desktop purchased last November, a four year old laptop and my wife’s 6 year old desktop. The latter two are both Win 8 Pro upgrades from Vista. All three run IE 10.

The February patch kb 2909921, installed without any trouble on my wife’s machine, the oldest of the three, but repeatedly fails on the other two. There have been 11 failed attempts on my PC, a lot less with the laptop, which is seldom used. Typically the patch downloads, installs to about the 85% mark, says there has been a failure and is reverting to the former state, reboots and repeats the process. I have tried downloading and installing with firewall and AV switched off, but it makes no difference.

Exactly the same thing happened with the March update kb 2925418, which installed on my wife’s machine, but not the others.

Although we do not use IE this is worrying, as it apparently is an important part of Windows.

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Hi George,

Does the failure occur after rebooting, when you are informed that updates are installing and the percentage progresses from zero to some value?

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Hi Rui,
No, the screen shows the patch downloading, then installing, as usual, until around the 85% level it announces an error has occurred and the system will revert to the previous state. After some more work the PC reboots, I log on and during the initiation of the start up programmes the error message returns and the system reboots again. After the second reboot everything returns to normal.

Perhaps I should mention that when installing the February patches 4 or 5 failed initially, but all except the Cumulative Update were successful when installed one at a time.

I tried to update to IE 11, hoping that might help, but it’s only available with W7 or W8.1, and all attempts to install 8.1 fail at the stage where it demands my local password, which I no longer remember. All the password crackers have been tried without success, and I am reluctant to try those that remove the password completely, allegedly allowing a new one to be created, which seems highly risky.

With no idea what is blocking the cumulative update – it might be something installed at the initial setup – all the images may encounter the same problem, so I’m beginning to think it’s necessary to wipe the PC and start all over again.

George

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Hi George,

Does the failure occur after rebooting, when you are informed that updates are installing and the percentage progresses from zero to some value?

Rui,

My most recent experience, using the link to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s…letin/ms14-012, (see above post) has shown my previous reply may be incorrect, due to my poor memory.

The installer downloaded, I was asked if wished to install the IE update , and after replying in the affirmative it showed the update being installed, then said it must restart, after which it was configuring the update, until the failure message appeared and the reversion began.

This restart before configuring leaves me in some doubt as to whether it constitutes a reboot, as it did not require logging in, and hence I’m not sure if my earlier reply was correct.

Sorry about that.

George

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I thought that OA could be to blame about that, especially if the issue happened during the reboot phase, but it seems it doesn’t even get there (usually prevent OA from loading at boot when applying patches, it sometimes stops updates from completing, but when that happens the update process completes normally and it’s during the post reboot phase that the issues occur. This doesn’t seem to be your situation, however.

I suppose you get a generic error number, when you try to install the update?

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I thought that OA could be to blame

Office Automation?
Open Access?
Open Arena?
Overeaters Anonymous?

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Office Automation?
Open Access?
Open Arena?
Overeaters Anonymous?

Online Armor, which I know George is using.

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I suppose you get a generic error number, when you try to install the update?

Rui,
No, just the message that installation failed and will revert to former state.

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Rui,
No, just the message that installation failed and will revert to former state.

If you open Windows update, from the control panel, you can choose View Update History on the top left and then click one of the failed updates to get an error number. Maybe that can help find the reason for the failure.

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George, The Microsoft Technet page for “Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (2925418)” is:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms14-012

That page shows all the download files for installing this patch manually, an entry for each Windows version under the Internet Explorer version.
This also clearly shows in the last column that this March update replaces the February Update (KB2909921), so you only need to be concerned about the latest one.

If you can download the install file for your Windows version and IE version, you should be able to install this update. When you run the install file, first right click the file name and see is there is an entry that says “Run as Administrator”, select this if shown.

Also you have not stated which Firewall and Antivirus program you are using. This may help us to understand if there are any special issues for disabling them during the install.

I hope you have better luck with this update this time.

JC

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JC,
Thanks for your help.

The firewall Is Online Armor and AV is Emsisoft.

Your link offered a choice of downloading an installer or saving the update. I chose the former, not having had much luck without it, but right clicking failed to provide the option of running as administrator. The end result was as with previous attempts, despite firewall and AV being turned off.

Tomorrow I shall try the save option, and also have another go at the 32 bit laptop from your link, without any great expectation of success. But thanks anyway.

George

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George,

I think it is possible this is OA’s doing. Before installing the updates, right click the OA icon in the tray, choose Configuration from the popup menu, then Options, General, and uncheck Launch Online Armor at next startup.
Install the updates then and once the computer boots and the installation concludes, start Online Armor again, and go to the same options screen and check that option again.

OA is on and off with allow Windows Updates to proceed, so I no longer take chances, I just configure it not to boot when applying updates. This shouldn’t be needed, but it does work for me.

Let me know if this helps.

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George, I guess I was not clear about the download. You should choose to save the file on your computer. That way you can run it again if there is still a problem. This is the file I suggested that you right click to see if you can “Run as Administrator”.

In addition, I agree with Rui that Online Armor is probably the cause. Disable it as he suggests. Maybe even do a reboot before attempting to install the update, just to be sure it does not affect the initial execution of the installer file.

JC

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(…) Maybe even do a reboot before attempting to install the update, just to be sure it does not affect the initial execution of the installer file.

JC

That it does not, or the installer wouldn’t start. The process goes well until after the reboot, so it’s OA booting that may interfere with it. This matches my own experience (I run OA as well).

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Rui,
Many, many thanks once again, that’s taken a load off my mind.

As a precaution I switched off OA after making the suggested change, and it worked fine. There was a scare when I checked the update history and it wasn’t listed, but the IE update was still listed as available, and after clicking that it installed literally in seconds, so it must have been a failure in updating the download history promptly.

Speaking of which reminds me that this morning I was surprised to see the failed attempts on the previous two days were not shown in the history. Whilst there I right clicked one of the earlier failures, which showed Error 800F0922, which led to an option to troubleshoot problems with installing updates, but as there is no problem now I didn’t proceed further.

It is not clear, at least to me, whether you make this change to OA when installing all downloads, just those from MS, or only the problematic ones. I was surprised yesterday, after another failure, to discover that although Emsisoft had to be turned on again, OA was already running – perhaps I should have realised that was the cause of all the trouble.

Finally, what would I do without your help with my computer difficulties. Again my thanks. The laptop can wait a few days, but should be no trouble now.

George

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George,

Well, it’s good to know you got it sorted. We’re here to help and it’s great to feel our help is useful :).

I just do this for Microsoft updates. So, once a month, before installing updates, I create an image, then apply this setting to OA and let Windows install all updates. Once it completes, I restore OA to its normal settings, having it load on startup again.

It is possible that simply putting OA in learning mode would help, as well. I think I am going to try that when I update Windows again (latest updates are still waiting, haven’t had much willingness to shut down both my machines) and will report back.

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