Hi Andrew,
Thanks. I finally found the solution to my problem here: https://forums.iis.net/t/1229869.aspx. The Wireless broadcom driver, even after uninstalling leave some registry entries that caused the problem. I de-activated the Wireless device in BIOS, removed the driver completely, did not allowed Windows Update to update the driver and finally went thorugh the registry and deleted every reference to Broadcom I could find. "After a bunch of digging, I found my problem was that my Broadcom Wireless driver had added some registry keys to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Cryptography\Providers and iissetup.exe was just picking the first provider from the list, which was the Broadcom one, and failing."
After i did that, I also proceed with the USB-ISO created installation(Setup) without any connection to Internet (unplug Ethernet cable) and I also clicked to not make updates before installing(which is the recommended option during setup).
Then I am now with 1709 with latest January updates. Wireless Broadcom driver is back enabled up and running as well.
this fixed mine. iv been using ethernet for quite some time but i checked those registry entries and it had broadcom so i simply deleted the entries for it. there were 2. i ran a full search for broadcom as well, found a few other entries for it regarding SHA256. the prior entry had a microsoft entry in the key so i copied that over the broadcom entry as it referred to the earlier keys i removed.
to note: i dont have any wireless adapters installed as id already removed them. had an old netgear, dlink and tplink over the years. most recent being the tplink. all software had already been removed.
downloaded the update and it went perfectly. though asus aisuite had an issue after the restart. i'll just reinstall it. i was only using it to monitor temps anyway and i fixed that issue a while back.
This helped me - finally after a couple of months!!! THANKS!!!!