A convenient solution to installing SP1 on problem systems

[Yousuf Khan]

In previous threads, you may have read about my problems in trying to
get SP1 to install on my system. Some people just give up and re-install
Windows 7 from scratch and then apply the SP1. I won't go over all of
the solutions I tried, needless to say nothing worked. The only one that
worked was to do an In-Place Repair Install of Windows 7 -- basically
removing all the accumulated patches since the original Windows 7, and
going back to the foundational Windows 7 installation image, as outlined
in this link:

Repair Install - Windows 7 Forums
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

This took several hours, but it worked. It's main advantage is that you
don't have to reinstall all of the programs from scratch that you've
accumulated. That's usually more problem than it's worth for most
people. I've got hundreds (if not thousands) of apps on this system, big
and small. Reinstalling them all, finding their registration codes,
previous settings, etc. is the pain, not the reinstall of Windows.

Once the in-place repair has finished, you'll find that Windows Update
will tell you have more than 50 patches to re-install, before it gives
you the choice to download the SP1 Windows Update package. Ignore these
patches, as one of these patches was most likely responsible for why you
couldn't install SP1 in the first place; in fact, you should disable
automatic Windows Updates for the moment. Instead, download the
standalone Windows 7 SP1 package:

Download details: Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1
(KB976932)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...e6-4056-4059-8a1b-3a9b77cdfdda&displaylang=en

The standalone package is about a gigabyte so it'll take a while to
download and install. Once it's downloaded, save it so you don't have to
download it again. The standalone package contains most of the previous
patches already, so that's another good reason to avoid downloading
those 50+ patches suggested from the Windows Update. Once the SP1 is
installed, and you've rebooted, you'll find that there's much fewer
patches to download from Windows Update: instead of 50+ patches, you
might only have about a dozen of them. You can now install those
remaining patches, and now your system is completely uptodate with SP1
now installed. Best of all, you didn't need to reinstall most of your
programs.

Yousuf Khan

 

[relic]

In previous threads, you may have read about my problems in trying to get
SP1 to install on my system. Some people just give up and re-install
Windows 7 from scratch and then apply the SP1. I won't go over all of the
solutions I tried, needless to say nothing worked. The only one that
worked was to do an In-Place Repair Install of Windows 7 -- basically
removing all the accumulated patches since the original Windows 7, and
going back to the foundational Windows 7 installation image, as outlined
in this link:

Repair Install - Windows 7 Forums
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

This took several hours, but it worked. It's main advantage is that you
don't have to reinstall all of the programs from scratch that you've
accumulated. That's usually more problem than it's worth for most people.
I've got hundreds (if not thousands) of apps on this system, big and
small. Reinstalling them all, finding their registration codes, previous
settings, etc. is the pain, not the reinstall of Windows.

Once the in-place repair has finished, you'll find that Windows Update
will tell you have more than 50 patches to re-install, before it gives you
the choice to download the SP1 Windows Update package. Ignore these
patches, as one of these patches was most likely responsible for why you
couldn't install SP1 in the first place; in fact, you should disable
automatic Windows Updates for the moment. Instead, download the standalone
Windows 7 SP1 package:

I had, and so did a few million other users, ALL patches installed (except
WLM2011 of course) and installed SP1 without a problem. I suspect it was not
an update, but something else on your system that caused you to have
problems. Without knowing what had been done to your system, including
downloading Trojans, etc. no one could have told you what needed to be done
to allow you to install SP1. I believe the repair install was an early
suggestion.