Windows 8 Update Failures

[River Valley Computer]

I know this has been brought up before and I have searched both TN and Googled it until we are blue http://www.technibble.com/forums/images/smilies/confused.gif in the face. Nothing concrete as to why or how to prevent it.

We have had four systems in the past week with Win 8 (not 8.1). Three had failed 750 GB HDDs (Acer). Installed Win 8 no prob then comes the updates. 2-3 hours of updating to come back with a message saying "Failure configuring updates - reverting changes" No error code or anything they run for about 1-2 hours un-updating. The 4th one was a virus clean-up. Did the same thing.

Can't figure out which update it is or if it the sequence of installation. Tried it both automatically and manually.
Has anyone found this happening and had any luck fixing it? We ares still investigating it and if we find out anything we will post.

Thanks in advance.

P.S. - Read Jerry, the Computer Guy and markverhydens posts but still nothing conclusive but good discussion.

 

[Krynn72]

We have actually been seeing a lot of this. It seems almost 80% of nuke and paves or new hdds have this issue. Usually after it fails, it attempts it a second time and works fine. I haven't have had enough time to look into it really since it always to work anyways.

 

[14049752]

It seems to work if you do them in groups of 15-20. It's a pain, but....yeah.. Just go into the updates and instead of installing them all, install them in segments.

 

[NYJimbo]

It seems to work if you do them in groups of 15-20. It's a pain, but....yeah.. Just go into the updates and instead of installing them all, install them in segments.

+1 this. I usually sort them smallest to largest and do groups of 20 or so and that has been working out well so far. Don't know which is the bad guy or if its just too many changes cause something to "crash" when it goes to reboot but this smaller segment thing works for me.

 

[Doc+Com]

It seems to work if you do them in groups of 15-20. It's a pain, but....yeah.. Just go into the updates and instead of installing them all, install them in segments.

^^^ This. I switch off auto update as soon as I can get into an 8.1 upgrade and then do them in batches of 20-30 but I also do them in date order so that the earlier released updates get installed first. I switch auto update back on once I've got through the initial 90 or so updates that are pending after the upgrade.

 

[cypress]

I ran into this issue as well. But never did them in batches. Makes alot more sense to do so.

 

[Porthos]

http://www.technibble.com/forums/showpost.php?p=447265&postcount=8


For those of you who use the windows store to go to 8.1-- after you install 8 fresh you only need ONE update to make 8.1 available in the store.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl....aspx?id=40098

8.1 in the store includes update 1 already installed. After that there very few more updates at this time.

 

[Krynn72]

http://www.technibble.com/forums/showpost.php?p=447265&postcount=8


For those of you who use the windows store to go to 8.1-- after you install 8 fresh you only need ONE update to make 8.1 available in the store.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl....aspx?id=40098

8.1 in the store includes update 1 already installed. After that there very few more updates at this time.

Wow thanks! I missed that thread I guess, thanks for the info.

 

[Laplandz]

i too have been having the issues with the 2-3 hour "reverting changes" annoyance!

i found KUC's tool to be most useful, have used it on 7-8 machines and its sorted it every time.
the website for reference: windows-update-checker.com

direct link to the tool of awesomeness: ToolOfAwesomeness

make sure you run it as admin and just read the instructions, i haven't done all the clever stuff you could do with it, just followed the instructions and hoped for the best

 

[katz]

i too have been having the issues with the 2-3 hour "reverting changes" annoyance!

i found KUC's tool to be most useful, have used it on 7-8 machines and its sorted it every time.
the website for reference: windows-update-checker.com

direct link to the tool of awesomeness: ToolOfAwesomeness

make sure you run it as admin and just read the instructions, i haven't done all the clever stuff you could do with it, just followed the instructions and hoped for the best

So, in your experience, the Windows-Update-Checker tool will download all of the appropriate updates needed, install them - without having them fail? Does it do them in small batches as well, unattended, or will it grab them all at once?

 

[Laplandz]

So, in your experience, the Windows-Update-Checker tool will download all of the appropriate updates needed, install them - without having them fail? Does it do them in small batches as well, unattended, or will it grab them all at once?

to be honest i initially tried it as i had figured it wouldn't do any harm and i'd tried so many other repairs. I didn't read the how-to's (I was in state of pertinent frustration!).

it basically creates a couple of scripts to complete several tasks, the first script removes old, bad and superseded updates with the next script installing the updates that are needed and registering the things that need err, registering...
it will download missing updates for the machine to a folder which can be copied to a flash drive. On new systems i copy this folder to the root of c: and run the KUC updater from a folder on the desktop (i copy from the usb as i had a problem with the 3rd or 4th machine changing drive letters).

I have needed to run the 2nd script twice on a couple of machines (both were fresh installs) but the cmd prompt will tell you if this is needed after a reboot. As far as unattended is concerned, well its a bit of yes and no. The actual updates are installed without interaction except for the odd reboot and restarting of the script, it certainly doesn't install them in batches of 10-20, more like 163-5.
Today I tallied the total of machines i've ran it on to be 11, all over the past 3 weeks and it has worked perfectly on every single one.

the only prerequisites are, it needs to be ran as administrator and for windows update to be set to "never check for updates" until its finished. it seems to remove all the old updates and reinstalls them, it is not exactly the quickest solution, it took 3-5 hours on average on std SATA's, with SSD's doing it in 1-2 hours.

Hope that helps...

Lee

 

[Laplandz]

it seems to remove all the old updates and reinstalls them.
Lee

this reads wrong... it reinstalls the updates that have superseded the old ones.

 

[katz]

Thanks for the info. - this is an interesting tool to have avail.

it took 3-5 hours on average on std SATA's, with SSD's doing it in 1-2 hours.

Seems like the speed is not much faster than doing it manually, though.

 

[Laplandz]

Seems like the speed is not much faster than doing it manually, though.

I agree, the benefits for me are, it is mostly automated and it has put 100% of the machines right so far where updates are concerned. i figure it's better for future proofing if nothing else. i like the fact that it removes the old, unneeded updates also.

 

[Xander]

Out of curiousity, why are people spending so much time (and bandwidth) doing Windows updates when they could be doing WSUSOffline to bring the PC -almost- current and then Windows Updates to top it off?

 

[bertie40]

Out of curiousity, why are people spending so much time (and bandwidth) doing Windows updates when they could be doing WSUSOffline to bring the PC -almost- current and then Windows Updates to top it off?

I know this sounds ridiculous, but sometimes I feel the conventional download and installs are faster than wsusoffline.

I can't quantify it, but I feel WSUSOffline is going overboard and installing unnecessary stuff.

And if course, I still find skip loads of updates to install, (software and hardware) even after an up to date offline run.

I still use it, but I suspect it isn't the big time saver it's made out to be.

 

[Martyn]

I know this sounds ridiculous, but sometimes I feel the conventional download and installs are faster than wsusoffline.

I can't quantify it, but I feel WSUSOffline is going overboard and installing unnecessary stuff.

And if course, I still find skip loads of updates to install, (software and hardware) even after an up to date offline run.

I still use it, but I suspect it isn't the big time saver it's made out to be.

It's probably better for those with slow internet(I have 55mb dl) but the beauty of it is you can leave it to reboot and carry on installing the updates allowing you to go out and do calls.

 

[Xander]

Bingo, Martyn --- that's its biggest selling point right there. Update/reboot until it's --almost-- updated and then let WinUpdate take the rest.