Situation
A company tried to install SP1 for a Windows 2003 server remotely and they received “No updates were installed”. The Installation History displays Failed.
Troubleshooting
1. When tried to installed it again locally using Windows Update, they received the same error.
2. Tried to install all security patches first and then installed the SP1. That didn’t work.
3. When we suggested them to download the SP1 to the local server and install it, they received another error “WindowsServer2003–KB889101–sp1–x86-ENU.exe is not valid win32 application”.
Problem
The last error gave us a clue and they didn’t download the full SP1 (it is only 116MB instead of 336MB). When asking them how they downloaded and installed the SP1, they told us that they were using RDC. After check the TS configuration, we found it the TS had idle session limit 30 minutes and end disconnected session 5 minutes. They didn’t finish the download and installation before the RDC was disconnected. After they downloaded and installed it locally, it updated successfully.