Installing Windows Vista Service Pack 1

This is definitely one of the experiences I will remember for quite sometime. I shared here earlier about the problem I had with windows vista’s explorer and “class not registered” error, for which no easy solution was in hand. I was hoping for so many days that the “mythical vista service pack 1″ will get rid of the problem. When the first set of discussions started appearing in vista-blog (hosted by Microsoft) and then around the net, my hopes were shrinking as I was reading through the set of “issues” the guys at Microsoft tried to fix with the service pack. My issue wasn’t listed! But still, you know, hopes die hard!

And when it died, there were blood all over the floor!

Service pack 1 got released and I downloaded it from Microsoft’s download zone. I double clicked the exe. It started.

After first set of installs while windows was running, it said more things will be done as I shut down my computer. I was a good boy and I listened to its plea and clicked on “shut down”.

[State A] Up came the blue screen (not of death, but the nice one with green threads of light that’s the treadmark of Vista [well, to be more accurate, of Visa Home Premium]) – and up came the words “Installing service pack – stage 1 of 3″.

[State B] It ran for an hour before saying “could not install service pack – reverting back changes – will try again during start up”.

[State C] While starting up, it was again “installing… stage 1 of 3″ for 10 mins, then “could not install service pack – reverting changes”.

[State D] I could use the computer, but since this no further updates from Microsoft were being accepted, as it said “something is pending in the update queue [yeah, your bloody service pack, you idiot!] – so please clear it and then try me again”.

And loop infinite from State A -> D and back to A.

And that was my life for about a month (I even stopped shutting down the bloody laptop – always kept it on hibernate), before I got fed up to no end, and just restored the laptop back to factory settings (i.e., cleared the accumulated dirt of one year off it) – installed my needful softwares one after another – and, of yes, installed Service Pack 1 clean and smooth.

And yeah, my problem of “class not registered” went away!

During that month of dread I searched virtually every forum that talked about service pack 1 and its problems – problems people faced during installation – and their rational solutions. I even saw a site that said “we fix PCs – we remove vista and give you xp”. But it seemed no one was suffering from the infinite loop of installations and reversals that I enjoyed riding in. Lucky lot!