Windows Update for Windows 7 continuously failing upon retries

For several days now a particular 51Mb update for Windows 7 (2019-03 Security Update for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems (KB4474419)) has failed to install properly and kept me in a perpetual update/restart/fail/update loop. Upon restarting to complete the installation I keep getting the “Failure configuring Windows updates Reverting changes”. Manually downloading the update and installing produced the exact same failure notification. The Windows Update log indicates an accompanying error code 80004005.

I have attempted the Windows Update Troubleshooter a couple of times to fix this issue, to no avail. I have also noticed that not completing this update has meanwhile corrupted Microsoft Security Essentials to the point where I am not able to complete a virus/spyware scan without the process crashing, accompanied by an error report.

Many online searches suggest that restarting the OS would eventually sort out kinks related to unsuccessful updates, but clearly this is not the case for me. Any thoughts on what is causing this error and how to fix it? Cheers.

I have now resolved the issue. The problem stemmed from having a Linux dual boot via GRUB, which for reasons X made the update upon restart fail. Since GRUB was in a separate Linux partition, I was able to circumvent the issue by booting the Windows 7 partition directly via BIOS, ignoring the GRUB phase. My Microsoft Security Essentials virus scan now works normally again. Hope this helps others with the same problem!

Forum posts with further discussion on the problem:

https://www.sevenforums.com/windows-updates-activation/418834-unable-install-kb4474419-win7-x64-ultimate.html

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/kb4474419-will-not-install/658900bc-3103-4a0e-a9ed-08c5c2d31e76?page=2