Cumulative update December 2020 - KB4592438 Failed to install

Having same issue. Numerous attempts to install KB4592438 - all resulting in Undoing Changes and return to original.

I have connected to four different support people... three trying everything to check Win 10 and my computer, including DISM, scannow, troubleshoot, RegWUEng, etc.  Nothing is finding any issues.

The last support did separate this update from another. We got the other update to install and restart. But when we attempted install the above update, it failed again. I do note that it is a very large and lengthy install.... and quite a long undo session.

With others reporting the same issue, I think its time for MS to revisit this noted KB update and see if there is a real issue.

Hello,

I've had problems with this update as well. I've tried enabling .NET in Windows features, disabling firewall, clearing Software distribution folder and one other in System32, those didn't help me.

After that I did the mentioned:

sfc /scannow

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

and added

chkdsk /r

But what most likely helped me was "freeing" disk space. When I was googling for possible issues for this update I've found this thread and some general info that, among others, having not enough disk space might be an issue. I've had plenty so I have ignored that at first, but after a while I have recalled I'm using 4GB RAMdisk and my both Windows TEMPs are redirected to it. My RAMdisk starts with the system and in this case, update was quite big and 2nd part of the update was running after restart, so probably before RAMdisk could start or RAMdisk was too small for this update. I've changed paths for my TEMPs in environment variables (variables TEMP and TMP) to an existing folder on the system drive and it was last thing before a succeeded update attempt.

Since I wasn't making update attempts in between those 4 last mentioned steps I can't say for sure what combination of them helped, but I have a vague memory I've had a quite similar issue few years ago and back then it was due to update being unable to get to TEMP locations due to changed paths - not having enough available space and might have been just the same now.

A tip for MS crew: if the update needs disk space, let it create a folder in Windows folder for its own and delete it after the update is done as last part of the installation, that would make the update independent of TEMPs paths that can be changed to a disk too small or unavailable during boot up.

If it doesn't help you, focus on the error code for solutions connected to the error code instead of solutions to problems connected with the update number. Update is new, most error codes are much older, so it's very likely there's more to find looking for error code.

Best regards,

miauek

Can you give us a little direction on how to make the changes that you used to get the update to work?

Where is the offline installer located?

I have the same problem, because I try to install this update from Windows update. It appears the same messages, as you. But error kode is 0x8007000d

same problem with this update. works ok on my very old surface pro but not on my recently bought HP Laptop.  Some update files are missing or have problems. We'll try to download the update again later. Error code: (0x8007000d . I have 402 gb of space on my C drive.