Unable to install Windows update

Unable to install Windows update (.Net Framework and Office updates). The installation hangs and you have to kill the process to get out of it.

To resolve this issue we followed the following steps:

- We took a processmon log when the install hangs and Filter it for msiexec process
- Found that it has multiple hits for Hewlett-Packard entries
- Researched and found that this is a known issue with Excessive registry entries in HKCU causing problems in Terminal Server environment :

https://forums13.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?admit=109447627+1249511383520+28353475&threadId=1247687

To resolve this issue we have to follow these steps :

- Stop Print Spooler service
– Delete all the registry keys that were created by the 32 Bit HP CIO Components Installer
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Hewlett-Packard
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ Terminal Server\Install\Software\ Hewlett-Packard

HKCU\Software\Hewlett-Packard

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Terminal Server\Install\Software\Hewlett-Packard

- If these keys does not get deleted in normal mode then you have to boot the computer in Diagnostic mode and delete them (using msconfig)
- Once the keys are deleted boot back to normal mode since the updates won’t install in Diagnostic mode
- Run Windows update it should install fine

NOTE-

Sometimes the InProgress key holds the path of previous install so we need to delete that key in such issues :

HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\InProgress

This is an know issue documented by Hewlett Packard - https://www.kbwindows.com/2009/01/hp-universal-print-driver-hp-cio-components-installer/
This is an issue with Msiexec (Windows Installer) . HP had identify that Microsoft Installer related to the “32 Bit HP CIO Components” creates thousands registry API calls as a result of over 2000 – 4000 subkeys created in the registry for every mapped printer.

Content by : Amit Sharma