Similar trouble was caused by an April update

Jun 14, 2015 06:21 GMT  ·  By

Earlier this week, Microsoft released this month's Patch Tuesday updates, and unsurprisingly, one of the bulletins that it included in this new rollout appears to be botched and is causing trouble on a number of Windows 7 computers.

As we reported to you a few days ago, KB3058515 fails to install for some and is being offered again and again, despite the fact that, in Windows Update and in Internet Explorer, the operating system is listing it as “successfully installed.”

So if it's already installed, why is the update being re-offered every time we start our computers?

That's the question that Microsoft is yet to answer, but it turns out that these problems aren't entirely new, as a similar behavior was experienced with another Internet Explorer patch rolled out in April.

KB3038314 was released as part of the April Patch Tuesday cycle and also brought improvements to Internet Explorer. But according to the known issues section on the official page, installing KB3038314 sometimes fails with error 80092004, which is the exact same error that users are seeing this month when trying to install KB3058515.

Here's what Microsoft says about the errors you might be seeing when trying to install KB3038314:

code
• After you perform a clean installation of Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2, and then you upgrade from Internet Explorer 8 to Internet Explorer 11, you may receive an error message that resembles the following:

Windows Update encountered an unknown error
error code 80092004

• After the clean installation, Windows Update continues to offer KB3038314 even though the security update may already be correctly installed.

If you receive this error message, click About Internet Explorer on the Help menu to determine whether the security update was installed. If the Update Versions line shows KB3038314, this indicates that the security update is correctly installed and that the system is not in an unprotected state.

Microsoft is researching this problem and will post more information in this article when the information becomes available.
It turns out that we got two different updates, the same application supposed to be patched, the same error, and the same behavior after reboot.

Possible fix for KB3058515

Obviously, with Microsoft remaining completely tight-lipped on this problem, it's really difficult to find a workaround and stop the update from being re-offered. But what's more important is to get the update successfully installed, and thus make sure that no security flaw exists on your computer.

According to posts on Microsoft's Community forums, a possible fix (this means that it might not work for you, but it's worth a chance since you don't have another option) is to remove Internet Explorer completely from your computers and then install it from scratch via Windows Update.

Once you do that, you will be running Internet Explorer with KB3038314, and then you can check for new versions in Windows Update. KB3058515 should then be offered once again, and automatic installation is supposed to be running smoothly.

Note that this workaround might not be effective for everyone, and in case you find another one that solves the problem for you, use the comment box below to share it with the community.