Patch Successful on One system but not another?

I am wondering if there is a Cache dump or process of getting a patch system to recover from a failure where the patch has deployed successfully on a different system. There are a variety of errors depending on the patch as well as device. I see some remediation errors as well as server not found etc.

Will Clear cache help resolve this type of thing?
Does Windows Update service running cause problems with this process? Any other tips to get the rest of my deployment to become more successful?

If someone from Novell is listening... Where is the documentation on Patch deployment best practices? I have tried to review the online docs and can't find anything that gives clear guidelines on patch deployment. I also find that Windows update will show completely Updated by Microsoft yet ZPM shows massive patch deployments needed. I also have .Net 3.5.1 updates that showed successfully deployed, yet when the zac ps or DAU runs it still shows the update as needed.

Any help or guidance would be extremely helpful.

Thanks

Richard