Failure configuring Windows Updates Reverting-Lenovo T61 Win7 64bit

[Muse]

A few days ago my Windows 7 64bit Ultimate Lenovo T61 indicated that there were updates to install and I let the machine do the updates as a batch, had the machine restart but got this message:
- - - -
Failure configuring Windows updates
Reverting changes.
Do not turn off your computer.
- - - -
The machine eventually reboots and comes back to the same screen. If I let the machine do its thing it eventually sorts things out, restarting itself between those messages and evidently reverts to the condition before updates were installed and Windows boots. But if I run Windows Update again and let all the important updates install, the machine wants to reboot and the whole thing happens again, just like before. There are ~45 "important" updates to install. I don't want to install them one at a time and reboot between each install, it would take me hours and hours and be tedious. I do have an image from June 2012 I could restore. Is that what I must do? Please help, thank you.

 

[ViRGE]

Is that what I must do? Please help, thank you.

You don't have to install them one at a time, but you're definitely going to have to install them piecemeal. Install half of the updates; if it works then install half of the remaining half, etc. Sooner or later you will figure out which update is the culprit, and it will be faster than going one at a time (see: binary search).

 

[Muse]

You don't have to install them one at a time, but you're definitely going to have to install them piecemeal. Install half of the updates; if it works then install half of the remaining half, etc. Sooner or later you will figure out which update is the culprit, and it will be faster than going one at a time (see: binary search).

Brilliant thinking! Much appreciated!

Um, when you say "see binary search" you mean do a Google search on "binary search?" Guess so, I just searched on it and came up with some fairly mathematical stuff (I have a degree in math... long time ago).

 

[ViRGE]

Um, when you say "see binary search" you mean do a Google search on "binary search?" Guess so, I just searched on it and came up with some fairly mathematical stuff (I have a degree in math... long time ago).

You don't have to go Googling for binary search. I was really just illustrating that the algorithm I gave you is an example of a binary search.

 

[Muse]

You don't have to go Googling for binary search. I was really just illustrating that the algorithm I gave you is an example of a binary search.

Yup. I brought up the Windows Update window and it said there are 45 important updates. For some reason one of them is by default unchecked. It's an update for .NET Framework. I left it unchecked and unchecked the last 23 updates and am right now installing the remaining 21 updates, will restart and see how things go.

If and when I narrow it down to a single bad apple, should I just decide to not install that one? Maybe Microsoft will fix a problem with it?

 

[Muse]

Yup. I brought up the Windows Update window and it said there are 45 important updates. For some reason one of them is by default unchecked. It's an update for .NET Framework. I left it unchecked and unchecked the last 23 updates and am right now installing the remaining 21 updates, will restart and see how things go.

If and when I narrow it down to a single bad apple, should I just decide to not install that one? Maybe Microsoft will fix a problem with it?

So, updating just those 21 updates there was a similar (probably the same) message about Failure. This time the machine untangled itself a lot faster, I believe. It's booted now, but Windows Update only finds 24 important updates. Therefore I have to conclude that it successfully installed all but one of the 21 I asked it to the time before. Which one? Well, I took photos of the 45 updates it wanted to install before. I'm going to inspect those and determine which one I asked WU to install last time is in the current list. That's my "culprit," I surmise.

Edit: Well, I don't see a single one of the 21 updates I tried to install last time in the list of updates to install now. I expected to find the culprit among them, the one update in both lists. Hmm. Maybe what? Maybe certain updates will install in certain situations. Don't know how to sort that out. Well, I'll try installing 1/2 of these and see what happens (after taking another snapshot of the list). I'm going to ask Windows to install 12 of the 24 offered important updates...

 

[Muse]

So, I install 12 updates of the 24 important updates to install and things go OK, AFAIK. But I again run wuapp.exe and it shows 33 important updates to install! Huh? Bad arithmetic. Well, I'll install 16 of those and see what happens... (taking pictures first).

 

[Dahak]

probably some updated that showed up after the first batch.
This is especially true with the .net frameworks. not sure why they cannot have one updated installer that will install all updated for it. instead of having to download 3-4 times a 50m update