problems with sharepoint subscription edition post updates. psconfig fails.

We are facing 2 issues, but i suspect its related. OS is server 2025. Patches are current. We applied the sharepoint upgrade: KB5002784 yesterday. At that time we discovered psconfig failed to complete. Initially it was due to a problem with the sharepoint admin service. Of note it would not start. I found this to be a problem with windows exploit protection. Exempting the exe associated with the admin service fixed this and the service now starts. PSconfig still fails, its failing at the spcopysidebyside step. of note the sidebyside log that the error references is never created. additionally running the spcopysidebyside powershell script, and specifiying a log file location also results in no log being created. i suspect this may be another windows exploit protection exemption that needs to be created. at this time im not sure what one is required, nor how this is not effecting all installs vs just ours.