Maybe a particularly nasty issue rectified the added effort, to cover all bases. To be fair, after fresh install, it takes a while until all updates are installed, including IE11.
They don't release separate IE Cumulative unless it contain security fixes it's not the first time Monthly Rollup get updated IE components that's why the Update version and KB shown in About page still says 11.0.385 (KB5060996)
Latest SSU is still from April 2025 KB5056456 2025-09 Security Only Quality Update for Windows Server 2008 R2 for x64-based Systems (KB5065510) 2025-09 Security and Quality Rollup for .NET Framework 4.8 for Windows Server 2008 R2 for x64 (KB5065750) 2025-09 Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 11 for Windows Server 2008 R2 for x64-based systems (KB5065435) All that was required for my Acer laptop this month. All completed successfully with 2 system restarts. Manually of course. Turned WU back on & it happily reports no new updates available for my laptop. 4 months to go before full on Linux conversion. ;>))
I don't use IE myself but the Win7 system still does for background things. Will use your link since I am no longer using rollup. Thanks.
Tell me, please, is it true that updates from the server cannot be installed without esu? That there is a check in the installer that will roll back the changes after a reboot?
That was and is true for all ESU updates. Either use the BypassESU in the latest version, or MAS/TSForge to install the ESU licenses (only manual installation).