Windows Update / Hotfix Conundrum

A month or two ago, two of my development servers got stuck in a sort of loop. No matter how many times I applied the .NET 2.0 updates they wanted, they’d want the updates again immediately after the install. It became a bit tedious…

… seeing the KB974417 and KB976569 updates listed repeatedly. I tried quite a few of the Technet tips related to fixing update issues but had no luck.

I would always end up with an Application Event:

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    HotFixInstaller
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    5000
Date:        5/23/2010
Time:        7:37:45 AM
User:        N/A
Computer:    EFIOTA
Description:
EventType visualstudio8setup, P1 microsoft .net framework 2.0-kb974417, P2 1033, P3 1642, P4 msi, P5 f, P6 9.0.40302.0, P7 install, P8 x86, P9 w2k3, P10 0.

and the following System event as well:

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    Windows Update Agent
Event Category:    Installation
Event ID:    20
Date:        5/23/2010
Time:        7:37:50 AM
User:        N/A
Computer:    EFIOTA
Description:
Installation Failure: Windows failed to install the following update with error 0×80070643: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2 Security Update for Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP (KB974417).

Last weekend I decided to just completely uninstall all of the .NET stuff from each server and then reinstall the whole pile. From the “Add or Remove Programs” control panel I uninstalled .NET 3.5, 3.0, 2.0, rebooted and the downloaded and installed 3.5 sp1 and went through the Microsoft Update patching process. A bit time-consuming but certainly easy enough.

Hey Presto, all updates “took” and the issues went away!

But alas… the next day, one of the developers reminded me that we needed to have Hotfix KB969612 installed to address some UI menu issues when using Internet Explorer 8. I installed that and immediately got the Windows Update prompts for the same two patches.

Full circle – right back to where I started the previous day.

Frankly, I’m not quite sure how to work my way out of this one. That hotfix (logically in retrospect) blocks the subsequent updates.

Possibly Related posts:

1. Windows 2003 TCP Tweak
2. The Easy Way to Update ProLiant Firmware
3. Updating ProLiants Firmware and Software
4. Finding Uptime for Windows
5. Installing Joomla! with Web Platform Installer 2