This Windows update is installing twice on some PCs, but apparently that's normal

My PC recently had a case of déjà vu after installing the latest round of Patch Tuesday updates, which are those monthly batches of security patches that Microsoft pushes out on the second Tuesday of every month. Looking through my update history, it shows that one particular update, KB4494441, installed twice. What gives?

My update history shows it was initially installed on Wednesday, May 15 (I waited a day before rebooting my PC), and then again today following another reboot. I'm not alone. Multiple users on Reddit report seeing the same update show up twice. Here's how it appears on my PC:

According to Microsoft, there is nothing to worry about. In a support document, Microsoft acknowledges that some users are seeing the update appear twice, the result of it requiring multiple download and restart steps. This particular patch requires two reboots to fully install, and a bug is causing both to be reported independently of one another in the update history.

"No action is required on your part. The update installation may take longer and may require more than one restart, but will install successfully after all intermediate installation steps have completed," Microsoft states.

"We are working on improving this update experience to ensure the Update history correctly reflects the installation of the latest cumulative update (LCU)," Microsoft adds.

It's a weird and confusing bug, but rest assured, it's also normal. In fact, if you're only seeing KB4494441 once, I recommend heading back into Windows Update to make sure you're not missing out on the full patch. One other way to check is to look at the build number of Windows 10 on your PC.

To do that, hit the Windows Key + R, type "winver" (no quotes), and press enter. If it's fully patched, it should read "Version 1809 (OS Build 17763.503)." However, if it didn't fully install, the build number will be listed as 17763.437 instead, indicating that another reboot is needed.

In case you're wondering, this patch offers mitigations for the recently announced Microarchitecural Data Sampling (MDS) vulnerabilities that Jarred wrote about earlier this week, along with a bunch of other stuff. So, you should grab it if you haven't already.

Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).