KB2919355 (Windows 8.1 Update) Fails (800f0092 and 80073712) on Windows 8.1 Pro w Media Center

OK, I think I have finally resolved this nasty issue that was haunting me and a lot of people in regards to this stupid update from Microsoft for Windows 8.1.  Here's what I did and persistence paid off.

*** 00) Open up an elevated Command Prompt and do a go into "Prgrams"  folder by typing in the following command

      CD "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs"

     - you will now be in the Programs folder.  Do the following command next:

     DIR

     - you will get a listing of all the folders in that Programs directory (folder).

     If you see both the "Windows System" and the "System Tools" folders, SKIP steps 0

0. Make sure the following folders exist - open an Explorer and type in (or copy the following path with quotes):

a)   "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs"

b) from the tree view on the left pane of Explorer, click the Programs folder to see all the files and folders on the right pane.

c) There should be the following folders (in addition to others):

   i) System Tools

   ii) Windows System

d) If System Tools folder does not exist, do the following in order to create that folder:

   i) On the left tree view pane of Explorer, right click on Programs folder to open the context menu and select "Properties".  Then go into the security tab.  Once there, edit the security so that your account has full read/write access to that folder.  

   ii) Create the System Tools folder within the Programs folder.

   iii) Repeat (d)(i) but reverse the permissions from your account so that you don't leave that folder wide open.

Here are some blogs about it:

   http://chentiangemalc.wordpress.com/2014/04/03/case-of-the-kb2919355-installation-failure-windows-8-1-update-1/

   http://atarasevich.blogspot.ca/2014/04/error-0x80070002-when-installing-new.html

1. Download the update file (~700MB) from the Microsoft support website:

   http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42335

2. Fix Windows Update: 

   http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971058/

3. Open up an elevated command prompt (open a command prompt using an administrator account).  You'll be typing the following commands into that window (or just copy and paste with your mouse to the command prompt).

a) Remove KB2919355 package: 

 dism /online /remove-package  /packagename:Package_for_KB2919355~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.3.1.14

b) DISM /Online /Cleanup-image /Scanhealth

c) DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

 - for the restore health line, don't worry about the errors

d) type EXIT to close the command prompt or just close using the "X" button.

4. Restart the computer.
5. Go to the start panel and type "Services".  Click on the Services icon to open up the Services Window.  Make sure the following services are enabled automatically:

a) App Readiness

b) Windows Search

• YOu can turn these services to manual or disabled once the update has been installed.

6. Go to the folder location where you have downloaded the KB2919355 update file (MSU) and click the file to install it.  Once it is done installing, restart the computer by clicking "Restart".  Wait for the computer to reboot and hopefully you won't see the message saying the update couldn't complete and then having everything reverted.

Repeat steps 3, 4, and 6 as necessary.  0, 1, and 5 must already be done before hand for any repeats to occur.

Hope this works for you.

Now, if you want to clean up some files after all this is done, open up command prompt again in elevated privilege and type in "cleanmgr".  What this does is open up a Clean Manager window to allow you to remove any unnecessary files from the system, such as the install files, log files, temporary files, etc.  Do this only if you're comfortable in doing so.  Otherwise, just ignore this step.

I've even tried using a Windows 8.1 Enterprise Evaluation DVD (which supposedly has the update) as a source to repair the component store, but I got the same error.

Have you tried diagnosing?   Using ProcMon?  I hate this stupid code and no information for it!  Is there some debug level event log we could use to enhance the diagnostics that people are getting?  Isn't closed source blackbox reverse engineering fun?   ; }

No, but there's really nothing to diagnose or monitor since the system works fine.  SFC /SCANNOW does not show any integrity violations, only DISM.  I'm beginning to think that the update breaks DISM somehow and the component store corruption message may be bogus.  Again, the alleged corruption only occurs after full disk cleanup or running the DISM start component cleanup syntax.  The very same start component cleanup in task scheduler does not cause this issue, even if I run it manually.  However, it does NOT cleanup the component store.  The results of DISM /online /cleanup-image /analyzecomponentstore are the same before and after it's run; same number of unclaimed packages, etc.

I've even tried using a Windows 8.1 Enterprise Evaluation DVD (which supposedly has the update) as a source to repair the component store, but I got the same error.

Have you tried diagnosing?   Using ProcMon?  I hate this stupid code and no information for it!  Is there some debug level event log we could use to enhance the diagnostics that people are getting?  Isn't closed source blackbox reverse engineering fun?   ; }