Metropol

Hello.

Right. Installed Windows 7 SP1 on the laptop. Took a while but everything ok.

Installed it on the desktop. Took longer. Windows refused to start up. Asked it to do a repair. Said it couldn't. Then asked it to do a restore. It said it couldn't do that either, but actually it had properly restored it to before the SP1 install. At this point it also decided I was running a fake copy of Windows, but a few clicks corrected this.

I'd installed SP1 with a load of other updates first time round so I had another go but this time installing everything except SP1 first, and this all happened with no issue.

Tried to install SP1 again and this time it said it couldn't because of "sqmapi was corrupt or missing". Fixed this problem and installed SP1 apparently successfully, but on reboot once again Windows failed to start.

Now restoring. Again.

BTW, SP1 deletes all the restore points bar one before it installs.

At the other end of the spectrum, I've upgraded seven Windows 7 desktops and notebooks without so much as a hiccup or a burp from any of them; it's been by far the smoothest and quickest Windows Service Pack installation I've ever been through.

Not that I'm trying to rub salt in the wound or anything - it's just raised an eyebrow in mild surprise, as this is actually the first instance of someone I 'know', albeit tenuously through a community, that's had problems with SP1; everyone else I know that's gone through the SP1 install has had a process as painless as mine have been.

I don't know how well you manage your system, but crapware/malware and installations that heavily customise the OS can all cause issues with Service Pack upgrades; if your next attempt to install SP1 fails, and you succeed in rolling back to a restore point again, it might be worth running a few Security Essentials/Defender scans and/or removing non-essential software before trying to reinstall SP1.

Might be worth mentioning that I had a very curious issue when installing Vista Service Pack 1 a few years back; after installing, Windows repeatedly failed to boot, and it was only when I unplugged all my peripherals that it finally booted. Turned out one of the USB controllers had decided to shit itself up, and somehow corrupted the boot sequence, but as soon as the device (I think it was an external hard drive) was unplugged, it removed the USB controller from the boot sequence and Windows loaded as normal. I kicked up a stink and Dell replaced and upgraded the whole system under warranty, which was nice - but I mention this in case it might, just possibly, be relevant. Sometimes, the smallest and most unlikely of things turn out to be the culprits.

Anyway, good luck completing the installation soon. n'th time's a charm, and all that.

The machine with a problem is fully up-to-date, clean of any viruses, is backed up weekly, defragmented regularly and has nothing unusual installed on it at all.

marksi wrote:The machine with a problem is fully up-to-date, clean of any viruses, is backed up weekly, defragmented regularly and has nothing unusual installed on it at all.

In that case, I'll have to assume it's user error. I advise you to put the computer in the bin, and get drunk.

This will be of no comfort whatsoever, but SP1 went onto 'er indoors' laptop without any problem.

Is THAT what you call it

Another few hours wasted on this. It is the graphics card (ATI Radeon) that stalls the final bit of SP1 being installed. Removed it and it installed the rest of SP1.

Then tried putting card back in - system fails to start. So I tried an old NVidia card I had lying around. It will start up with that installed but refuses to recognise it either, limiting the video output to 800x600.

Now restoring back to before SP1 again and this time I have decided Microsoft can fuck off and I will live with my perfectly adequate dual-output graphics card and without SP1.

I presume I'm stating the obvious when I ask if you've installed the newest drivers from ati.com (not windows update)

Pete wrote:I presume I'm stating the obvious when I ask if you've installed the newest drivers from ati.com (not windows update)

You are, and I did update to the most recent (only from last year, so not ancient) before the most recent attempt.

Have you tried rolling back to the standard Windows Update drivers for the graphics card and then installing SP1? If that works you could reinstall the ATI drivers afterwards.

woah wrote:Have you tried rolling back to the standard Windows Update drivers for the graphics card and then installing SP1? If that works you could reinstall the ATI drivers afterwards.

It would only use the standard windows drivers with the Nvidia card in it - refused to recognise it at all. Tried adding the ATI card at that point again, but wouldn't finish loading Windows.

Have given up and hidden the update!