Questions[knowledge-base](server)

Am troubleshooting a complete windows update failure - on a brand new install, standalone Windows 2012 Server Essentials. Zero config, no existing infrastructure, "straight out of the box" setup.

Windows Update never gets going at all - but strangly have installed it in the past from this exact install media on this exact server.
Yet, now it fails. The only rational reason I can imagine is a new update has recently been released that breaks windows update for this OS version on a fresh install.

The last entries from the WindowsUpdate.log are:

2017-01-18  15:11:14:840     412    1424    Agent   WARNING: Failed to evaluate Installable rule, updateId = {E66A6795-3E20-43ED-9C66-FE134EEEECBC}.200, hr = 80070057
2017-01-18  15:11:19:324     412    1424    Agent   Bundled update {FBEC0F80-9F87-4B42-BA14-2BBE7148322A}.203 is missing extended metadata
2017-01-18  15:11:19:324     412    1424    Agent   Bundle contains children which has no localextended metadata and thus is invalid.
2017-01-18  15:11:19:324     412    1424    Agent   Update {B27CF4B3-0B7D-475D-9129-883E6DED6182}.203 is not a valid bundle. Not returning it.

Question: Does the above mean that there is a specific invalid/corrupted Update that the server is trying to fetch?

If so, is it possible to translate the hex/guid update ID codes ({B27CF4B3...}) into Microsoft KB Update ID? So one may research the specific update that is causing the problem?

KB2641690 is an update to the Microsoft Untrusted Certificate Store but it not detected as required by MBSA.

It is not installed on my machine and does not appear to be superseded by anything.

Any ideas?

While trying to script deployment of .msu's I realized that certain KB articles had multiple releases. One example of this is KB2524426.

KB2524426 was released May 2011 and re-released June 2011. There are similar other re-releases KB2536276.

Since the KB article is part of the file name I used this thinking that each contained a unique update (.msu). Now that I know this is not the case, I'm trying to figure out if taking the most recent KB release will suffice when creating/deploying an update package.

I have a problem where KB2494088 (a SQL Server 2008 R2 patch) continually fails to install when I reboot my system. Downloading the manual patch and trying to apply it says:

The SQL Server patch package is part of a general distribution release (GDR). This package cannot be applied since this SQL Server feature has already been patched. To continue, you must install a higher version of the SQL Server patch.

Most other posts (this, this) suggest it's either a failed (or cancelled) past installation or requires a SQL server repair.

I've looked at registry settings and tried the repair option, but nothing seems to work.

In my current work we think we can get benefit from having a knowledge base, so the next time someone has a question/problem etc, that base can be consulted and an answer will show up.

Also, it will reduce the risk from having people leaving the company with the knowledge and we would have to start all over again.

My question is, what strategy can we follow to implement/buy/get/build/etc this knowledge base?

Are there software ready for this? Would it be better to have something build by ourselves ( we have some programmers )

This is an small company ( < 30 ) and the base should be accessible from outside the office ( when the employees are with the customer etc.) so I guess a webapp is in order.