Cumulative update December 2020 - KB4592438 Failed to install

Mark,

glad that it worked for you. It didn't for me and I suspect the explanation is not the difference in online vs offline installers but the installation history of our PCs prior to applying KB4592438. Before I saw your response, I posted the steps I took to resolve it. In that post, I forgot to mention the offline installer but did so in an earlier one. But everyone affected should give the offline installer a try in any case.

Regards,

Roland

Hi,

I was offline for a day or two so unable to respond earlier. When I originally shared my findings, I used two computers, both on 20H2 19042.630. Once failed as described, but the other succeeded. The difference is in the update history:

1. The one that failed started with a clean install of 2004 (aka 20H1) in September, later upgraded to 20H2 via the Windows update mechanism.
2. The one that succeeded has many years on its belt. I upgraded for 1909 directly to 20H2. As this is a very hold, hardware limited laptop, I was not offered the upgrade to 20H2. So I forced it by creating 20H2 installation media and performed a non-destructive update. An important difference, more about that later.

Regarding the KB4586853 question - not in my case as I'm not on the Windows Insider channel so using only retail builds

Preliminary findings: neither 20H2 19042.630 or KB4592438 have a principle issue as one combination worked. The difference must be in the underlying installation history.

The next step - as we collectively couldn't identify the cause yet, I decided to roll back to 2004 through a backup taken in late October and a bare metal restore. I then applied the upgrades released since then via the Windows update mechanism including the 20H2 upgrade. When applying KB4592438, it failed again with logs pointing again to the dual_wvmbusr.inf component as before.

So I concluded that the only way forward is to progress with a clean install of 20H2 but not at the price of starting from scratch. Unfortunately, the successive applications of patches erases the older restore point so rolling back to 2004 via system restore wasn't possible. Back to the bare metal restore as before, followed by a non-destructive upgrade using 20H2 installation media. When running Windows update afterwards, only a Windows defender update and KB4592438 where offered. As last, applying KB4592438 succeeded! The resulting OS build is now 19042.685.

Preliminary conclusions: KB4592438 issues are not likely caused by a specific OS build and as my example shows, it happens with retail builds.

Neither is 20H2 19042.630 or**KB4592438 failing in general.

In my case, the corruption of the underlying install has been caused prior to applying 20H2 and neither sfc / dism - based repair methods could fix it.  The non-destructive 20H2 update wiped the slate clean and eradicated the the underlying issue. What caused it remains unexplained. But this approach is only possible for those of us who can revert to a version prior to 20H2. Otherwise, it is a destructive re-install. 

So for me, the key issue is no longer KB4592438 but the inability of sfc / dism to restore the integrity of the operating system prior to applying the patch.

Best regards,

Roland

I was in a boot loop in 630 so I did the

Download KB4592438 Offline Installer

option and it's all good now. 

Updated to 685

I can't get the update to install at all after a restart windows goes into auto repair mode which fails. I am then left with the only option of system restore. I had a similar issue with a large update last Christmas I think it was and was advised after several attempts the only way was to to do a destructive fresh install of Windows 10. I'm not doing that again. I'm not so technical as most of you guys so please go easy on replies.

Thanks

Jake

What version of Windows 10 did you have installed before making this update. Did you make the KB4586853 which passed in 19042.661?

This was my case and when I wanted to install the preview of the new cumulative update about a week ago, I had for the 1st time had an installation failure. After several attempts, I had decided to wait for last night's cumulative update KB4592438 to switch to 19042.685. And what I was afraid has happened again, this update failed with error 0x800f081f. After having tried all the panoply of repairs: all the commands DISM, SFC / Scannow ... the installation failed each time although I had never had an installation failure on my machine before. As I am careful, I always keep multiple full system backups with AOMEI and EASUS. So I had the idea of ​​restoring a backup of 19042.630, which therefore preceded 661. And there, immediately after the restore, the installation of the cumulative update KB4592438 went without a hitch. . So I only had a few updates of various software, released in the meantime, to return to a top system, in version 19042.685

So if you were in 661, it might be the same kind of problem and, provided you also have backups, you could go back to 630, before installing the new cumulative.

Here, I took the lead a little, but now it rolls, and for me, it was the 661, which gave me the discord.

Wishing it could serve you,

Good night.

661 was pulled, it's 662 now.

I could only get 631 to install, maybe I roll back to 630 and try 662?