On my Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit laptop, one of today's many Microsoft patches keeps prompting to be installed over and over, even after it indicates it is successfully installed. The patch in question is related to Microsoft Knowledge Base article KB937287, and is a prerequisite to Vista SP1, which is set to be made available next month.

Update 937287 is a prerequisite package that contains updates to the Windows Vista installation software. The installation software is the component that handles the installation and the removal of software updates, language packs, optional Windows features, and service packs. Update 937287 is necessary to successfully install and to remove Windows Vista SP1 on all versions of Windows Vista. This update will be available on the Windows Update Web site soon after the release of update 935509 and before the release of Windows Vista SP1.

I ran the installation for all of today's patches which applied to my computer (twelve of them in total) and this one kept hanging around. Each time I restarted the computer, Windows Update again prompted me to start the installation. Confusing and frustrating after the fourth or fifth time, to be sure (reminds me of a joke about the definition of "insanity" heh).

I was able to resolve this problem by downloading the individual 64-bit patch from the Microsoft Downloads site and installing it manually. Note that the linked download location is for 64-bit Vista OS users only. Once I did that, the prompts stopped and it shows up in the installation list as successfully installed on the machine. In fact, the list now shows all of the installation attempts as successful, with a separate line for each try. Only the first try now shows "failed." Strange.

It's interesting that the KB article points out that this update will be required in order to install Vista SP1 via Windows Update when it is released, but not if you chose to download and install the service pack manually (as it will contain the fix). Extra interesting is that for this update I was unable to install it via Windows Update, but was successful with the manual install.

At any rate, there have been a flurry of posts on a variety of forums and other sites today where people were having this problem. Some people were recommending grabbing a leaked version of SP1 Refresh 2 via non-MS sites (read: not a good idea) and installing that, but for those who wish to wait and make sure they get what MS releases when they release it, this option is probably better for you.

If it works, drop a comment. Actually, be sure to comment if it doesn't work for you, too. :)