Windows update possibly causing issues with Grub ( KB3033929 ) with Windows 7 / Server 2k8 R2

**Patch Tuesday update causing infinite reboot loop on Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2
**
Multiple users have reported a serious issue with the KB3033929 March Patch Tuesday update, one of 14 security updates destined for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, which improves support for SHA-2 code signing on the aforementioned operating systems.

According to a poster over on the Microsoft Support forums, the patch can’t be validated, which causes the system to reattempt it on the next boot:

“I’m having problems with the KB3033929 update from the latest run of Tuesday patches. After installation the PC reboots, but during the boot up configuration of the patch it fails and Windows starts reverting the configuration and reboots. And then it starts all over again a couple of times until it eventually boot into Windows.”
Although Microsoft has so far not replied to the topic, another user suggested that the GRUB boot loader was getting in the way of the installation, and by temporarily setting Windows as the default boot loader in the BIOS appears to fix the issue.

However, for those that aren’t successful with this workaround, we suggest going to Control Panel, click on Programs and Features, View installed updates, look for KB3033929, right-click it and hit the “Hide this update” option.

Source: Neowin

I don’t run a multi-boot system myself but someone might run into this so here’s what might be causing it and possibly a route to mitigating the issue.

Interesting. Thanks.

I have not yet applied updates to my Win7 system for this month. But I have run into similar problems in the past with Vista and with Win 8.1, though no reboot loop (just an update install fail and backout).

I currently have my Win7 and Vista systems set to boot into Windows, and I access linux via entries in the Windows boot manager. This seems to avoid that problem. I would have done the same with Win 8.1, except that its boot manager seems incapable of booting linux in a UEFI environment. So I have to make grub2-efi the primary boot. I have one of those UEFI systems, where Windows always ends up booting first, so I had made an entry in the Windows BCDEDIT settings to work around that. And one of the Windows 8.1 updates did not like that. So I had to temporarily undo it until the Windows update took.

That Windows update went smoothly, as expected.