One more botched update could get a working patch

May 14, 2015 11:10 GMT  ·  By

Some of the updates that Microsoft rolled out in the last five months or so were causing plenty of issues on Windows computers, and several fail to install successfully, thus leading to even more trouble on these machines.

Windows 7 users might be familiar with KB3024777, an update that was released by Microsoft to remove another faulty update causing problems on Windows 7 PCs, namely KB3004394.

Since last December, KB3024777 has been the ugly duckling of Windows updates because no one wants to install it anymore, at least not after reading the complains posted online by those who actually tried to do so.

Posts on Microsoft’s Community forums and dated December 2014 indicate that KB3024777 fails to install, and even if you remove KB3004394 manually, it still tries to install and it still fails. What’s more, some are complaining that the update cannot be hid in Windows Update, so there’s no way to get rid of the prompts to install it.

“Error Code 1”

In some cases, installing the update fails with “Error Code 1,” an error message that says absolutely nothing to those having a hard time with this update.

Now here’s the interesting part. The official page of KB3024777 shows that the last revision to this update was made on April 23 and we’ve indeed received reports from users saying that they were offered this update once again. Some, however, refused to install it because it was the original update released in the past and causing problems on Windows 7 machines.

Microsoft hasn’t said anything official about this update, but a Microsoft Community thread where users detail their struggle installing KB3024777 now has nearly 8,000 views. Plenty of similar discussions can be found all over the web, so it’s still a mystery for everyone whether Microsoft indeed fixed this update or you can still keep it hidden for the time being.

While you’re not usually recommended to hide updates, doing it in KB3024777’s case shouldn’t harm your computer because it’s just supposed to remove an older patch. If KB3004394 is no longer installed fine on your PC, there’s no point in deploying KB3024777 too.