Windows 8.1 Update 1 Failing to Install with errors 80070020, 80073712 and 0x800f081f

Jerry?  Whom or what exactly did you call?

[grumble grumble this should always be a free support case grumble grumble]

Jerry email me at susan-at-msmvps.com (change the -at- to @) and I'll get a case for you set up.

Email sent, just i case you get it late Microsoft said since it's out of Warrenty I would be charged for the help and the person started to say if you had a car that needs fixing that is out of warrenty they wouldn't pay for it this is the type of stupid response I get from Microsoft really??????  BTW I called the Microsoft contact us website phone number.

Expanding the partition didn't solve anything for me. I have over 1GB free space on my "System Reserved Partition".

But anyway, yes please, a support case would be very helpful, thank you.  I’ll follow up with you directly, Susan, as I have seen you bid a few others to do.

So I have been off radar for a while with MS tech support - thank you to Susan Bradley for setting this up for me!  Still no joy but some interesting insights gained.

In the first interaction they just got me to repeat the various attempted fixes with the dism utility and then try installing the re-published manual update.  Same result of it failing to configure Windows updates at the very end and then undoing changes.

The second time they phoned me, (with my permission) set-up a remote control of my machine and ran a load of diagnostics, the output of which was finally uploaded to MS for their perusal offline.  (That was on Friday evening.)

Then last night (Monday) they called me back to explain their interpretation of those diagnostics and the various log files.  The headline is that the component store on my machine is corrupt and this is basically what is blocking the update.  Why can't the update fix this?  Because a key security aspect of Windows 8 is that it has a central core which cannot be modified even by an admin user; in some sense the OS itself runs with some kind of uber-user permissions which no other process can impersonate.  This was a response to the emergence of rootkits and comparable threats which could overwhelm any earlier version of Windows.

So neither the original update nor the 05 May version can rectify this.  While they admitted that work continues to try to further improve the update, I now have the impression that no such update will be able to modify and hence fix this component store.  The recommended fixes are either a destructive refresh (which I can ill afford while travelling on a prolonged itinerary) or a restore from a Windows 8.1 Pro ISO with the non-destructive option I have seen described here.  And how would I get such an ISO?  Via the Internet if I have a retail licence product key.  Apparently the OEM (sic) product key which goes with the Windows installation on my Surface which I bought direct from MS does not count!

But let's not get distracted by this commercial issue; for now it is orthogonal to the point I want to make.  An hour or so after this call, I was doing something else and in the back of my mind reflecting on the issues raised and I thought, hang on, based on the security model outlined above what else would have had the necessary authority to trash my component store? Answer: the original in-place 8.1 upgrade which many of us ran from the Windows Store!  The fact is that I had already been aware that my system was never quite the same after that upgrade.  Specifically, approx. 25% of the time it will fail to resume from sleep or hibernation in a way that never happened before the 8.1 upgrade.

So my tentative hypothesis is that something did not pan out quite as planned with the original 8.1 upgrade and that this has been a problem waiting to manifest ever since.  I even wonder if MS have been aware of this issue, even whether this apparently-doomed KB2919335 update might have been designed to flush out such issues?  I really have no idea; this is just idle speculation.

But the MS tech did not deny any of my suggestions and was highly sympathetic to my sense that, if this mess was caused by either a < 100%-effective original upgrade and/or a failed KB2919335 update, and if the best solution depends on access to the 8.1 Pro ISO, then really they ought to find a way for me to access this forthwith!

Right now I am not planning on doing anything more until I get home in five weeks or so, now that I have seen that the future-updates deadline has  been pushed back again.  I can even hope that a fresh iteration of KB2919335 might be published which might magically fix my set-up (but I am not optimistic).  Or MS might change its position about access to that ISO (if I am not mistaken, at least one other user here has been promised access already), or maybe someone here has found another way.  (It is not clear to me whether the key is just required to access the ISO, or whether it is also required to run the restore process, in which case it seems you would more or less have to buy one specifically for this purpose which strikes me as an unacceptable requirement.)

I am posting all of this in the hope that (a) this sheds some light for others in a similar position to me, and (b) that someone out there might have a constructive suggestion about accessing the ISO.  (I had the impression from the tech that it could be pretty much any 8.1 Pro retail key if you happened to have one from another machine ...)

A couple of other points.  I have read other posts expressing dissatisfaction with MS third-tier tech support, whereas I have only praise and respect for the two guys I spoke to.  They were patient, diligent and clearly doing the best they could to unravel a complicated mystery.  My support case is now archived until I get home but they left an open invitation to get back to them at any time with further questions or in fact any other general feedback on Windows.  I could not ask more of them, even if I have a beef with the commercial line (not their decision) about access to the ISO.

And to a minority of contributors: you really want to revert to Windows 7?  Well, good luck!  My old laptop still runs W7 agreed, but I don't have to use it anymore.  You can argue about the merits of Metro and the Start screen, but let's not forget that Windows 8 and 8.1 also bundled n years significant R&D and performance enhancements, not to mentioned the security mentioned above.  In spite of all this hassle, I still love my Surface, love my Start screen and have lost count of the number of times I have found W7 lacking on other colleagues machines.

Everyone seems to love to diss MS, but most of us have so much invested in the way Windows works it is in our common interest for the Windows platform to prevail.  It remains the most backwards-compatible and open platform that is friendly to ISVs and legacy tools and this means it promotes competition and innovation.  So I might be frustrated when things like this don't go as planned, but I have no interest in complaining; I simply want to see it fixed so we can continue our journey which 'just works' so much of the time it shocks us on the rare occasions when it doesn't.