Vista SP2 installation error 0x80070059 . Help please :(

Everytime I try to install SP2 , I get to 100% , then it says 'service pack did not install, reverting changes' , and when Windows boot , I get the above error message . I tried googling , and then tried the suggestions , but nothing doing .

I also realised that there is this 38 kb windows update that doesnt get installed, or even if it does , is back on the 'available updates' list in the next boot .

SInce there was a suggestion of reinstalling windows, i tried that , but even that failed . My question is whether all 3 failures are caused bu the same problem .

Any ideas / suggestions / remedies / workarounds or simple Hi-s welcome

Cheers

BTW , my OS is Vista Ultimate with SP1 , which came with my laptop .

 

Don't know, but... first, when you double-click the SP2 download file, you should see a box that asks if you really want to run it... does this box say "Publisher: Microsoft Windows"? If not, then it downloaded wrong. (I had that problem when trying to install SP1.)

Secondly, when you reinstalled your OS, did you install drivers and programs first, or did you install SP2 first thing. If you didn't already try it, I suggest installing SP2 right away before any drivers or apps or windows updates. Oh yeah, and do this without any external devices plugged in to your computer.

Also, be sure the SP2 download version matches the version of Windows that you have -- either x86 or x64.

 

Thanks for that quick response swarmer ,

1) It does say it's Microsoft , and it was a direct download from MS .

2) The thing about reinstallig windows was that I never could finish it . I was trying the upgrade option , and it failed after the reboot . I'm not at all willing to go for a clean install because I'll need to spend about 2 days for transfering data and installing programs , valuable time I could be playing COD5-WAW

3) I'm using Vista business 32 bit and the SP2 is X86 .

Cheers

 

hmmm well I'd also try disabling all third-party security software, if you haven't tried that already. (They actually say you might have to disable antivirus programs in some of their documentation.)

Since you don't want to go through a clean install... another option is to do nothing and wait for it to eventually come via Windows Update. I mean it's really not that important to have SP2 just yet... the most noticeable difference is that my computer now takes longer to boot up. You will need to upgrade eventually though... MS won't want to support SP1 forever. But you don't have to rush.

 

I got it on update a yesterday. Isn't it suppose to be there yet?

Cooled my Laptop 4C lower idle.

 

You're absolutley right . I was googling , hoping for a solution or something to console myself , and stumbled upon this .

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1..._sp2_release_candidate_performance/index.html

It seems all SP2 does is slow down HDD performance , and in almost everything else , SP1 is equal or better

Think I'll wait .........

 

The article was written in February, a comparison between RC versions. I believe that you have waited long enough

I have been running SP2 for over a week now, direct from WU for 32 and 64bits and am very happy with the performance.

cheers ...

 

Ya I have really been contemplating installing SP2 on my laptop (sig below Vista 64) It hit my Automatic Update and I have just been researching before I actually install it.

I hear good and bad..some say SP2 seems faster and deleted off 30Gb of SP1 crap upon install and then I hear SP2 has issues and incompatabilities/errors or "no benefit" comments on this board. Thing is I have No Vista OS disc nor backup discs..so If something goes wrong I really am screwed.

Currently, I have my settings with SP1 perfect, and have my vista tweaks all done and it runs fast and great...Will SP2 mess with any of my settings?

Seems like Swarmer with 4698 posts says the only benefit he got was a slower boot! ; ) and qhn with 4044 posts says he is happy with the new performance. Im going with Swarmer bc he has 600 more posts than qhc.....just kidding

 

lol... actually, if you read carefully I said the slower boot is the most noticeable difference.

Now that I've been running SP2 for a bit longer, I have to say I do notice an overall speedup in general usage. (I haven't run any benchmarks though.) Pretty much everything seems slightly faster except for bootup. However, comparing SP2 to SP1 with all current updates, the difference isn't drastic. Since I don't reboot much and mostly sleep or hibernate instead, the tradeoff is worth it to me.

Overall I'm glad I upgraded to SP2, but... if I were having problems, I'd say it's probably not worth spending hours or days debugging things if the upgrade doesn't go smoothly -- just wait and maybe some driver or something will be patched which will fix your upgrade hiccups.

btw Cinco I'm running 64-bit too, in case you're wondering.

Regardless of what you decide about SP2, I'd make an OS backup. Do you have a restore partition? If so, you can maybe clone it to an external hard drive. And/or you can clone the partition you use in everyday use, although it's probably a lot larger.

 

Just Fyi - SP2 creates a restore point for you before it "might screw" your system up

ahhh ... the power of quantity (just kidding)

cheers ....

 

Thanks qhn....too bad swarmer has you beat by 1 rep point....no wait (add rep)...now your tied!!

 

erm, getting back to the original problem

There was a similar problem updating to sp1 and the solution was to copy the file c:\Windows\system32\DriverStore\FileRepository\winusb.inf_0362a280\winusb.inf to c:\Windows\inf.