IE patches won't install

[trueblue]

Friends,

My client has a base image of W2K Professional SP2 for their desktop. When I try to install IE security patches the Control panel says that the patches are installed but the dll version numbers are not correct! Same with the Blaster patch last summer!

To complicate matters I can successfully install after two or three tries in safe mode.

What does this mean? Does Windows File Protection change anything? Do I have a corrupt catalog file?

Thanks so much for your help!

Michael