Cannot uninstall kb

Been stuck for several hours trying to uninstall a kb.  From the command prompt, it works fine:

cd c:\

then,

C:\Windows\System32\wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:xxxxxxx /quiet /norestart

Wusa does its thing, finds the kb, after the wusa process is done restart the pc, and its gone.

For the autoit scripts Ive tried:

ShellExecute("wusa.exe" & '/uninstall /kb:xxxxxxx /quiet /norestart')

No luck ^

$wusa = @WindowsDir & "\System32\wusa.exe"
Run($wusa & " /uninstall /kb:xxxxxxx /quiet /norestart")

No luck ^

$cmd = "wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:xxxxxxx /quiet /norestart"
RunWait(@ComSpec & " /c " & $cmd, @WindowsDir & "\System32", @SW_HIDE)

No luck ^

;FileCopy(@ScriptDir & '\kbuninstall.cmd', "C:\Temp")
;Sleep(5000)
;RunWait('C:\Temp\kbuninstall.cmd', '', @sw_hide)

^ Even tried running both .cmd and .bat files locally

$x = RunWait(@ComSpec & " /c C:\Windows\System32\wusa.exe /uninstall /kb:xxxxxxx /quiet /norestart", @SystemDir, @SW_HIDE)
MsgBox(0, "", $x)

No luck on this either, although it does bomb out with error code -2147418113 which appears to be a "catastrophic failure," (lol) similar to this link:  https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/systemcenter/en-US/a218e294-b0e6-4b26-80a9-4eef72476fff/wusaexe-uninstall-and-sccm?forum=configmgrsum

Searched up and down, never seen anything like it.