vista sp2 problem

this is really confusing. ive tried to install sp2 on vista twice. both times have failed. on the last step of the process i get a message saying the service pack did not install after step 3 of 3 reached 100%. so the changes get reverted...not quite. heres the kicker, i open the system menu and what do i see? apparently it did install...or were the changes not all reverted?

i dont have my comp tweaked in any way except for uac turned off. what do i do?

 

Did you try redownloading the service pack or just reinstalling? Also. you might try a system restore to before the first attempt to make sure that you don't have something left behind from those failed attempts.

 

when i restored i went with the one that was the furthest back in time. how would you redownload the service pack?

 

You can type "winver" into your start menu to see what SP is currently installed.

 

bump to the first page.

 

bump again. does anybody why this is not installing correctly? should i just give it another go?

 

If you can - do a recovery, start from scratch, first SP1 then SP2 - otherwise, do what Christoph suggsted - type winver into the Start menu seach box.

 

well after going thru it again it seems that sp2 did install according to the winver screen. but now i cant activate windows aero. was that option taken out of vista with sp2?

 

No, it wasn't. Try letting Vista recalculate your computer performance index.

 

i did that twice and the score was 4.4 . he appropriate services are running as well.

 

Please don't take offense, but the question should be asked in order to do a full diagnostic - your copy of _Vista is legit, correct, and you have no reason to think that your product key has been stolen by someone else, correct?

 

that is correct shyster.

 

Do you have transparency enabled?

right click desktop > personalize> windows color and appearence

 

doing that i get the appearance menu with a list of themes. add to that the fact that my laptop is now slower than it used to be.

 

On th escreen you are showing can you scroll up and find a vista aero theme to click on or does it only show vista basic?

Also on the screen before you got to the one you posted you need to have the transpaerency checked right underneath all the colored boxes.

 

it only shows vista basic

 

If you go to control panel> performance information and tools>adjust visual effects

What does it show? If you have -adjust for best performance picked, it might turn off aero. I have let windows pick what's best.

 

i have the same as you. i am beginning to wonder if my install of sp2 went wrong. i am thinking of going back to sp1 and trying the stand alone installer for sp2. what do you think? oh and i have all the aero files needed for aero in my themes folder.

 

I thought the same just before I read that.

 

i was just at the microsoft website and could not find the stand alone for sp2.

 

Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 x86
Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 x64
Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 ia64
Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 all-in-one disc image.

 

Tried rolling back the SP?
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948537/

 

ok i tried the standalone but that was unsuccessful. coming up with E_FAIL 0x80004005 whatever that means. but according to winver the sp did install. what is going on here?

 

That error seems to be generated by problems with the _Vista bootloader (that is, the service pack has to make an adjustment to the bootloader, and if it cannot find what it "expects" to find, it will fail the installation and issue the error in question).

According to Microsoft's knowledgebase article KB971204, check in the relevant log file - CBS.log (which can be found under this path: %windir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log) - and see if you find the following entries:

If you do, then you may have to repair the boot files using your _Vista disc, or else start with a clean re-installation of the OS.

 

ok i looked through the log and did not find those entries. i never had any problems installing sp1. here is what i think happened with sp2: it did but didn't, it is but it isn't. what now?

 

I don't recall many people having trouble with sp1.

 

I recommend this:

Reinstall Vista from scratch. Do not install any drivers or programs or updates.
Install SP1 using the SP1 standalone updater.
Install SP2 using the SP2 standalone updater.
Run Windows Update to get any additional updates.
Install your drivers and programs.

 

i cant exactly start from scratch as when i bought my laptop i did not get a vista disc. the only disc i got was the anytime upgrade disc. on a positive note i just restored to sp1 and i now have aero again.

 

Is there something specifically in sp2 that you wanted?

I've read the release notes for sp2 and determined there was nothing compelling me to install sp2.

 

I have to agree with Rob41. Forget SP2. I have not noticed any improvement in daily use. Not worth all the problems you are having. Maybe try it again in a few months when they have the bugs worked out.

I do think there are still some bugs with sp2. I had an old targus usb docking station with a vga port on it that worked fine with sp1. The computer became unusable due to video driver conflicts as soon as I updated to SP2. I uninstalled and reinstalled several times to make sure it really was the service pack causing the problem. In the end I uninstalled the Targus docking station and removed the targus drivers from my computer. Wasn't using it anyway. You however seem to really want your aero back, so I think sp2 just is not worth it for you yet.

 

ok thanks for all your help! i think i will forget about sp2 for now and stick with sp1. i guess i wanted to install sp2 so my comp would be up to date.

 

I have to disagree somewhat, at least with respect to just dropping the issue. If SP2 isn't installing on your system, that's because there is something borked about your current installation, and it seems to me that it would behoove anyone in that position to figure out what's wrong with their current installation.

Also, the primary purpose of many updates isn't to provide some sort of perceptible change to the functionality of the OS, but precisely to address some deficiency in the unseen, and thus unperceptible, parts of the OS - after all, when a malware writer starts coding, s/he tries to aim for the parts that aren't going to be impinging on your subjective perceptions, not the bits where you would immediately notice any sort of a change.