Today at work, I had someone ask me about an update that wouldn’t install. It kept downloading and trying to install from Windows Update but always failed. The update was for KB2539636.
After searching, I came across this MS post describing the same problem. So, I downloaded the update manually and tried to install it. When I did this, I got told it did not apply. ARG….if it didn’t apply, why did WU download the goofy thing.
I went searching again….I went searching again. Found this MS post where people suggested uninstalling and re-installing. No sweat. Head to Add/Remove programs and try to remove the app. HUGE ERROR! I got told that this update couldn’t run on a 64bit system. So how did the stupid thing get installed in the first place?!?! So now I can’t uninstall the thing.
I went searching again and found this MS tool to remove .Net. Download it and force the uninstall. That worked. Reboot and try Windows Update. No updates found.
I head over to MS Silverlight’s site to check. WOW….it was already installed.
Root cause: Somehow a 32bit ONLY app was installed on this 64 bit system and was causing conflicts. The installer checked for this when I tried to uninstall it but not when it was installed. Ok…that is really goofy but whatever.
And people wonder why I don’t think normal people should have 64bit OSes on their computers. There are too many problems that can happen when people don’t know and don’t understand what is going on.
Image from Chris Fritz via flickr