14 DAY TRIAL // Botched updates are part of our lives already, so it shouldn’t be such a big surprise that a new one is causing problems to users whose computers are powered by Windows 7.
Windows update KB3046269, which was rolled out in April this year, is apparently trying to install over and over again on a number of Windows 7 computers despite the fact that it seems to install successfully every time.
Posts on Microsoft’s Community forums confirm the issues and reveal that the problem first appeared in March, but it keeps bugging a number of users two months after that.
No workaround available yet
One of the users whose computers got impacted by this issue explains that the update is installing successfully on his machine, but after a few minutes, he’s being re-offered the very same update.
“For the last few weeks I've been battling my Windows 7 Professional SP 1 x64 installation. After Monday (03/16/2015), update KB3046269 keeps installing successfully, but after about 5 minutes after installation I am asked to install it again. No other updates have failed to install,” he says.
At this point, there’s no workaround available and the update is still being offered to users who haven’t installed it already, so there’s no other way to keep it away from your computer than to hide it completely.
KB3046269 is part of MS15-037 and is supposed to address security flaws in Windows 7, which Microsoft says could allow an attacker to install programs, view, change, or delete data, and create new accounts that have full user rights.
“This security update resolves a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could take advantage of a known invalid task to cause Task Scheduler to run a specially crafted application in the context of the System account,” the company says.
This month’s Patch Tuesday rollout begins tomorrow, so a fix for this botched update or a new one that could replace it completely could be released to address installation problems.