This morning I logged into my HPE Proliant DL60 which is running Windows Server 2016 (1607) and noticed it wanted to install KB4093119, which is the “2018-04 Cumulative Update for Windows Server 2016 for x64-based Systems (KB4093119)”. When I was done doing what I had originally logged in for, I told the update to install and reboot. After many reboots (I don’t have an LCD on the DL60, but it’s here in my office so I can tell every time it reboots by the fans), I figured something was wrong and hopped on the ILO to see what was going on where I was greeted by a BSOD loop – STOP 0x00000133 (DPC WATCHDOG VIOLATION). After troubleshooting (I couldn’t even get it to boot into the current build of Microsft DaRT as it too would cause a BSOD), I decided to make a Windows Server 2016 installation USB key from the setup DVD using Rufus. (I could have booted off the DVD ISO image via the ILO, but the ILO emulates USB 2 as opposed to the physical USB 3 ports in the server, so it would have been much slower). I copied the boot.wim to my C: drive and injected the most recent driver pack into it from the current HPE Support Pack for Proliant (in the root of the HPSPP DVD, called \WIN_DRV) before copying the wim back to the USB key.
I then booted off the USB key and when the Windows Server 2016 Setup Window opened, I hit Shift + F10 to open a command prompt. I deleted C:\Windows\winsxs\pending.xml then ran “wpeutil reboot“. As soon as the F9 to F12 function keys became available in the Proliant POST screen, I hit F11, which eventually brought me to the Proliant boot menu. Here I selected “Windows Boot Manager” and then immediately started hitting F8 to get to the Windows boot options. This allowed me to select “Last Known Good Configuration”, which allowed the server to boot into Windows without a Stop 0x00000133 (note – selecting just “Last Known Good Configuration”, or deleting just C:\Windows\winsxs\pending.xml won’t help – I found you must do both).
I retried the Windows Update a couple of times only to have the same thing happen again and again, so I followed the above steps again and again to get Windows Server 2016 running again. Then I Googled the KB number (KB4093119) and went to the Microsoft Support article about it. At the bottom of the support article, under “How to get this update” is a link to the stand-alone installation package on the Microsoft Update Catalog website. This allowed me to download the .msu for KB4093119, which I saved to C:\DL\UPDATES as KB4093119.msu.
I rebooted once again off the Windows Server 2016 installation USB key. When the Windows Server 2016 Setup Window opened, I hit Shift + F10 to open a command prompt. In the command prompt, I ran the following two commands:
md c:\temp dism /image:c:\ /add-package /packagepath:c:\dl\updates\KB4093119.msu /scratchdir:c:\temp
Once dism finished successfully, I rebooted the server with “wpeutil reboot”
Windows Server 2016 finally booted successfully with the Cumulative Update installed, and I did another check for updates – there were no updates left to install. I suspect these same steps would work on a Windows 10 machine that is having similar issues – although I don’t know if “Last Known Good Configuration” is an option with the most current version of Windows 10.
As always – Use any tips, tricks, or scripts I post at your own risk.
Bits & Other Bytes 