Windows update to 25H2 in WU is appearing while 25H2 is installed

PvtJohnTowle · Nov 24, 2025

Lesoudeur said:
All I have ATM is:
View attachment 154021

I am waiting for a fix on this so I will be monitoring this thread.

Ben Myers · Nov 24, 2025

facboy said:
there's no output.

Make sure to use an admin Powershell Window.

Ben

facboy · Nov 24, 2025

Ben Myers said:
Make sure to use an admin Powershell Window.

Ben

i did.

gr8sho · Nov 24, 2025

Hello. I too have fallen victim to this issue of repeating requests to install 2H25 only to have it fail. I had cured it once with an in place reinstall of Windows, but it's back again. I'm about ready to nuke the device with a factory reset, as I've tried all the suggested manual interventions and seem to be spinning my wheels in place.

This situation was likely triggered by using the Insider Program as none of my other devices exhibit the problem.

Lesoudeur · Nov 24, 2025

gr8sho said:
Hello. I too have fallen victim to this issue of repeating requests to install 2H25 only to have it fail. I had cured it once with an in place reinstall of Windows, but it's back again. I'm about ready to nuke the device with a factory reset, as I've tried all the suggested manual interventions and seem to be spinning my wheels in place.

This situation was likely triggered by using the Insider Program as none of my other devices exhibit the problem.

I am on the Insider Preview builds though have unenrolled. I am thinking that the update may be for Beta testers and Microsoft has screwed up.

gr8sho · Nov 24, 2025

I'm at a loss here. Thia issue may (presumably) block all other required security updates, and I don't like leaving my machine in this condition.

Ben Myers · Nov 24, 2025

facboy said:
i did.

Be sure to include the "#end" line. Otherwise, you will have to press "Enter" to get the last line to execute.

$Session = New-Object -ComObject Microsoft.Update.Session
$Searcher = $Session.CreateUpdateSearcher()
$Criteria = "IsInstalled=0 or IsInstalled=0 and deploymentaction='OptionalInstallation'"
$SearchResult = $Searcher.Search($Criteria)
$SearchResult.Updates | Out-GridView -passthru -title "Hide Updates" | ForEach-Object -Process {$_.ishidden=$true}
#end

Ben

facboy · Nov 24, 2025

Ben Myers said:
Be sure to include the "#end" line. Otherwise, you will have to press "Enter" to get the last line to execute.

$Session = New-Object -ComObject Microsoft.Update.Session
$Searcher = $Session.CreateUpdateSearcher()
$Criteria = "IsInstalled=0 or IsInstalled=0 and deploymentaction='OptionalInstallation'"
$SearchResult = $Searcher.Search($Criteria)
$SearchResult.Updates | Out-GridView -passthru -title "Hide Updates" | ForEach-Object -Process {$_.ishidden=$true}
#end

Ben

thanks for all the prompt answers. unfortunately i've done all that, it's still empty.

hYp · Nov 24, 2025

hI,
I had the same problem all people in this tread seem to have...
I had an insider account, and got the 25h2 upgrade early...
Now that 25h2 is officially out, windows keeps trying to install 25h2 again, and errors out during install.

My solution was,

Become an insider member again, and choose the ''release preview'' channel.
After a reboot, windows checks for new updates and finds nothing, BUT, also stops trying to download and install 25h2 again...

For now at least a good solution for me.

hYp

gr8sho · Nov 24, 2025

I decided to be done with it and factory reset the device.

PvtJohnTowle · Nov 25, 2025

hYp said:
hI,
I had the same problem all people in this tread seem to have...
I had an insider account, and got the 25h2 upgrade early...
Now that 25h2 is officially out, windows keeps trying to install 25h2 again, and errors out during install.

My solution was,

Become an insider member again, and choose the ''release preview'' channel.
After a reboot, windows checks for new updates and finds nothing, BUT, also stops trying to download and install 25h2 again...

For now at least a good solution for me.

hYp

Nope I am not in the Windows Insider Program

facboy · Nov 25, 2025

mine 'seems' to have installed successfully. i had a preview update installed on 19 Nov (i believe it was KB5070311). i uninstalled it from Windows Update, then it rebooted, and i left it overnight. when I came this morning Windows Update said it wanted to restart to install 25H2, but this time it said '35 min', whereas previously it always said '20min - 1 hour'. it restarted and says it's installed 25H2 successfully (it's now listed in feature updates twice, once from back in Sep and once today). 5070311 hasn't come back though.

Lesoudeur · Nov 25, 2025

I have gone down the route of rejoining "Preview Release" and this has wiped out the rogue install of 25H2. I have just checked for updates and it has not returned. I have sent feedback of this problem to Microsoft FWIW.

facboy · Nov 25, 2025

i was reluctant to rejoin the insider channel because i've been trying to get off it since 24H2!

Tadashi · Nov 25, 2025

hYp said:
hI,
I had the same problem all people in this tread seem to have...
I had an insider account, and got the 25h2 upgrade early...
Now that 25h2 is officially out, windows keeps trying to install 25h2 again, and errors out during install.

My solution was,

Become an insider member again, and choose the ''release preview'' channel.
After a reboot, windows checks for new updates and finds nothing, BUT, also stops trying to download and install 25h2 again...

For now at least a good solution for me.

hYp

facboy said:
mine 'seems' to have installed successfully. i had a preview update installed on 19 Nov (i believe it was KB5070311). i uninstalled it from Windows Update, then it rebooted, and i left it overnight. when I came this morning Windows Update said it wanted to restart to install 25H2, but this time it said '35 min', whereas previously it always said '20min - 1 hour'. it restarted and says it's installed 25H2 successfully (it's now listed in feature updates twice, once from back in Sep and once today). 5070311 hasn't come back though.

Thanks for these posts as it helped me figure out what was going on. I didn't even notice that the unenrollment finally kicked in properly which in turn seems to have had it set to do an in-place upgrade. They implemented this mechanism last year starting with the beta channel (KB5034218 Windows 11 Insider Beta Build 22635.3130 (23H2) - Jan. 25 for more details). So what we thought we were seeing as the 25H2 being installed again was actually Windows Update trying to do an in-place upgrade to properly put us back outside of the insider builds. The problem it seems is that KB5070311 seems to be not compatible with the in-place upgrade and so until you remove it, the 25H2 in-place upgrade will continue to fail. Once you do remove it and have yourself set to unenroll, then the in-place upgrade would succeed and you should notice you'll be brought back down to build 26200.7171. KB5070311 didn't come back cause that was a release preview insider update which is what you want if you wanted to get out of the insider builds.

PvtJohnTowle · Nov 26, 2025

Tadashi said:
Thanks for these posts as it helped me figure out what was going on. I didn't even notice that the unenrollment finally kicked in properly which in turn seems to have had it set to do an in-place upgrade. They implemented this mechanism last year starting with the beta channel (KB5034218 Windows 11 Insider Beta Build 22635.3130 (23H2) - Jan. 25 for more details). So what we thought we were seeing as the 25H2 being installed again was actually Windows Update trying to do an in-place upgrade to properly put us back outside of the insider builds. The problem it seems is that KB5070311 seems to be not compatible with the in-place upgrade and so until you remove it, the 25H2 in-place upgrade will continue to fail. Once you do remove it and have yourself set to unenroll, then the in-place upgrade would succeed and you should notice you'll be brought back down to build 26200.7171. KB5070311 didn't come back cause that was a release preview insider update which is what you want if you wanted to get out of the insider builds.

I don't have that option to uninstall KB5070311

arthuridea · Nov 26, 2025

facboy said:
mine 'seems' to have installed successfully. i had a preview update installed on 19 Nov (i believe it was KB5070311). i uninstalled it from Windows Update, then it rebooted, and i left it overnight. when I came this morning Windows Update said it wanted to restart to install 25H2, but this time it said '35 min', whereas previously it always said '20min - 1 hour'. it restarted and says it's installed 25H2 successfully (it's now listed in feature updates twice, once from back in Sep and once today). 5070311 hasn't come back though.

I have the same issue. But when I tried to uninstall KB5070311, got error 0x800f0825. I was an insider release preview channel user.
I've tried to run sfc,dism,clean updates download folder,and perform an in-place upgrade via windows 11 ISO. It works well at the beginning,but all changes at 28% or above... the installation rolls back with error 0x8007042b

Lesoudeur · Nov 27, 2025

Well I retried reinstalling the rogue 25H2 update after requesting to come out of the Insider Programme again and had all the same issues with it failing to install and then rolling back. I will also add that there is a horrendous amount of CPU power being used during this process. I then went back to the Insider programme for Release Preview and this morning was presented with a different update 2025-11 Preview Update (KB5070311) (26200.7309) which I installed successfully. I now notice that my older installation of 25H2 (08/31) has disappeared and in its place is a new date of ‎2025-‎11-‎27. I need another coffee.

moka62 · Dec 1, 2025

I saw on another forum that Microsoft had released the KB5072753 out-of-band hotpatch to address this problem: November 20, 2025—Hotpatch KB5072753 (OS Build 26200.7093) Out-of-band - Microsoft Support

Which sounds great except for I am not offered that KB through WU and there doesn't appear to be a way to install it manually. Anyone else seeing this?

Lesoudeur · Dec 2, 2025

I actually "Reset Windows update services" and then checked for updates and it downloaded (KB5070311) (26200.7309) which I then installed.
Ref: update to windows 11 25H2 fails - install error 0x8007042b - Microsoft Q&A

Windows update to 25H2 in WU is appearing while 25H2 is installed

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