Can't install KB5014668

Thanks for the replies on this. Unfortunately, I did do the repair install of Win11. It went okay but when I tried to do the updates that were showing, minus the bad KB5014668, some updates installed but the cumulative updates errored just like that KB did. I literally spent 3 hours running troubleshooter, multiple retries at installing them to no avail.

I rolled back to the previous version which took about 5 minutes and all looks good. I followed the advice of copying the sofwaredistribution folder from a Jun 23 marcrium image which was before I tried the preview KB install. When I went to settings and checked updates, the message of the failed KB update was still there. So I guess that's stored elsewhere.

I can either leave it like it is until the next update on July 12 or do a full Marcrium restore from my June 23 image. So except for a miserable 3 hours I'm right back where I started. I'm not sure why the repair install gave me the same install glitches, but now for more than just KB5014668. Is something else broken? Should I just restore the Macrium backup? I assume it will work as I can boot into the rescue USB stick and see all my backups.

I'm thinking the copy and paste of the old sofwaredistribution folder may not have really worked as I didn't stop bits and update in services before I pasted???

Added later: OK. I went back into my Backups and copied the SoftwareDistribution folder from June 22. That's before KB5014668 came out. I replaced the current folder with that one and restarted. I checked for updates and I didn't see KB5014668 there this time. The error about installing it wasn't there and checking updates didn't offer me that as a normal update. When I checked under optional updates it was there. I left it alone. When I checked install history, it's there with failed installs on the 24th, 25th and 26th. All times I tried to install it. This was slightly different from the first time I tried to install it. At that time it was offered on my front install page and it didn't say Preview or Optional but it did have a prompt to download and install.

I "misspoke". Following the information provided by John DeV did fix my husband's computer. No other special upgrade to Windows was required. He first put back from a nightly image C:/Windows/SoftwareDistribution/ he took out following the suggestions in https://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-10/how-to-force-windows-10-to-install-an-update/ .

Hello KenMel,

Thank you for updating me with that information. Performing an In-place upgrade usually fixes this type of issue. Please let me know how it goes.

Kind regards,

John DeV

Independent Advisor

Ok. BITS and Windows Update were stopped. I started them.

I ran DISM and SFC, both completed successfully with no errors showing.

I then tried to run the bat file. It stopped after a bit at access denied and while I was looking for directions to fix that, it completed. I ran it again as admin and it completed showing several errors as it could not find certain files, but it seemed to say it corrected that problem when it completed. I then ran Windows trouble shooter and for the first time I got a yellow banger saying there were update problems but then showed 2 green checks that files were replaced or repaired.

I again attempted to install KB5014668. The download stopped at 3% for a while then quickly went to 96% and 100%. It then started the install and again got to 25% and failed with the same 0x8000ffff error code. I had to restart several times to get it to boot into windows without it trying to finish the install.

So I'm down to the point of having to do a repair install. This bothers me a bit as I'm wondering if whatever stopped this update will interfere with the repair??? Is that a valid concern? Although I have Macrium backups, I haven't tested them in a while (My old test PC won't run Win11).