In many cases downloading each individual update directly from MS site and running the install will eliminate the future failures. In my case I continuously was receining update failures on the following packages:
Windows6.0-KB967723-x64
Windows6.0-KB970430-x64
Windows6.0-KB972145-x64
After I downloaded them from MS Downloads site and ran each update individually (this time all 3 installed successfully), - they disappeared from Recommended Updates list.
Hope it helps.