Recently I was trying to install hotfixes for Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) but the setup program would immediately fail with this error:
This patch package could not be opened. Contact the application vendor to verify that this is a valid Windows Installer patch package.
I had this problem with these two updates:
An update for Windows Server Update Services 3.0 Service Pack 2 is available (KB2720211)
An update for Windows Server Update Services 3.0 Service Pack 2 is available (KB2734608)
One cause might be if the user account that launches the setup program has special characters in the name, for example MList! or MList$. Every once in a while using non-alphanumeric characters in the user account name can cause uncommon issues, even though they are valid names in Active Directory. For example, the Operations Manager console will not show some of the graphics when viewing Alerts, it just shows picture place holders with a red X.
As a test or temporary work around for this error, I customized the folder path for my user profile:
- Log off
- Load the server’s registry remotely from a different server
- Navigate to "\\SERVER\HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList"
- Find the subkey by SID that matches your user profile
- Change the "ProfileImagePath" registry value and remove the exclamation point or special character
- Rename the user profile folder to match (i.e. rename \\SERVER\C$\Users\MList! MList)
- Log on again, check the profile path from cmd.exe (run "echo %userprofile%" and "echo %temp%")
For a more permanent fix, I will be renaming the user account and creating a new user profile. For more info on a similar problem, see my earlier blog post with suggestions at the bottom (workaround #4 is the same as the steps listed above):
System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager SP1 setup silently fails
Keywords: WSUS KB2720211 2720211 WSUS-KB2720211-x64.exe WSUS-KB2720211-x86.exe KB2734608 2734608 WSUS-KB2734608-x64.exe WSUS-KB2734608-x86.exe