Arrrghh! Going bonkers here.
We're rolling out Windows 7 SP1 across several thousand machines, via Software Updates, and getting reports of a few users who are getting a failed install.
In all the cases so far, I have been able to fix them by getting the user to download the System Readiness Update Tool, which appears to install using the Windows Standalone Installer (WUSA.exe) and does a one-time scan and fixes packages under C:\Windows\Servicing\Packages which, for some reason, sometimes don’t match with corresponding names in the registry.
Great so far....but we want a more pro-active fix, so I've created a Software Update Deployment in SCCM for this update (which fortunately is available as a regular Software Update from MS). Now the 'blurb' on this update states that "The System Update Readiness Tool (KB947821) is offered, only when there is a problem that the tool could resolve.”
And sure enough, SCCM reports only a small number of machines 'requiring' this update and shows the machines that already installed this update from MS as status "Installed". So presumably there are some installable rules at work here, for the update to know which machines may have problems with their Windows Service Packages. Despite this, there seems to be no way of forcing the delivery of this update to a test machine. I've tried to replicate the issues that we've seen on other machines and sat patiently to see if SCCM updates and picks up the test machine, but no joy.
Also, once you install this update from MS, you can't remove it. It's not installed in the regular way, with a listing in "Installed Updates" and any attempts to remove the KB via MSIEXEC and WUSA result in messages which state that KB947821 is not installed on the machine. Yet a machine that has run the update in the past will report "Installed" against SCCM.
The Update does stick an entry in the registry when installed, under:
HKLM>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Component Based Servicing>ApplicationEvaluationCache>Package_for_KB947821~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~~6.1.1.0
I've tried deleting this and then breaking one of the Service Packages (by deleting it or renaming it) to see if SCCM re-evaluates the need for the update, but nowt.