Vista Service Pack 2 sees the light

I successfully deployed SP2 across 4 machines in the household a week or two ago when the final files were leaked on the internet. Indeed, SP2 doesn't offer anything to be excited about. There are no "visible" differences and performance is the same. Nothing got "broken" in the process so, as Micro$oft says, it's just a convenient way to install lots of the past updates. No harm done.

However much you dress it up or add to it to try and make it better, its dog poo vista underneath.

It was utter crap the day it landed and its patched crap now.

!! 0xc01a001d !! 21055/90969 (\Registry\machine\schema\wcm://Microsoft...)

<<reboot

!! 0xc01a001d !! 21055/90969 (\Registry\machine\schema\wcm://Microsoft...)

<<reboot

!! 0xc01a001d !! 21055/90969 (\Registry\machine\schema\wcm://Microsoft...)

Sigh...

Now it's toasted my Vista x64 SP1 (with updates but not with IE8 and no beta) install.

Now got an evening ahead of me of rebuilding Windows and reinstalling all my software and drivers.

Still, at least I've got my Mac to work on whilst the PC is being resuscitated.

Wooo!!! Welcome to the 21st century folks!

Next up: support for dot-matrix printers

How absurd, telling someone to install yet another Microsoft product to make up for the deficiencies in the current product they are using...

If the updates were written properly as the OS should have been and the update process written properly so that it could be reliably reversed, then the hysterically absurd solution you propose would be redundant.

We could only guess that you were indeed an idiot before you wrote that response to YHGTBFJ, now you've proven it beyond all reasonable doubt.

Firstly, SP2 includes both general release update AND hotfixes. There are many times more hotfixes than general release updates. They are downloadable, but you have to know how to get them directly from Microsoft if you want them.

Many people who download the final for SP2 actually got the wrong final version! There were a couple of last minute updates to the build, and the result of using the old one is the inability to update (from what I can tell).

The WRONG versioning, even though sometimes listed under the correct verison number listed below, is 6.0.6002.18003

The correct version number is 6.0.6002.18005

So, if you predownloaded it, ensure you have the correct version!

To find out:
Run regedit
Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\Currentversion]
And yes, the Windows NT key is correct, Vista is an evolution of Windows NT!

There will be a ket called 'Buildlab'. This should read '6002.lh_sp2rtm.090410-1830' for the correct SP2. The listing under that, BuildLabEx, is the kernel build number, and should read similar to the above line. On x64 systems its listed as: '6002.18005.amd64fre.lh_sp2rtm.090410-1830'

Note the BuildLabEx key may change if there are any updates involving kernel32.dll, which don't happen too much through the normal update route but can occasionally happen via the hotfix route.

Rolled out the standalone SP2 on two different machines running 32 bit Vista.

On machine one, a quad boot system using Ubuntu grub to select which different hard drive and OS to use. Boot into Vista SP1, run SP2, reboot, get to 100% on third and final configuration stage and install fails with error 0x80004005. Reverts to SP1, 45 minutes wasted. Turns out SP2 install doesn't like multiple boot systems, workaround was to unplug all the other drives, boot into Vista drive, run SP2 install again which this time works like a charm.

On machine 2, pulled the XP drive and booted into Vista. Smooth SP2 install. Everything looks and acts fine except my USB wifi now locks up after about five minutes use, has to be physically unplugged to reset it, nothing else works. Argh. After messing with reinstalling card drivers, etc. without luck for an hour, give up and boot into XP, which works fine. Home wifi is Vista pooched now unless the USB wifi card gets a driver update some time in the future (or maybe never, it's a two year old card). Congrats on another fine job, Microsoft.

Can't wait to see what peoples' benchmarks of SP2 show. Colour me not impressed.

Mine is completely nuts, adding and removing columns, changing sort order, grouping files. Totally nuts... sigh...

I had no problems with Vista x64 SP1 either, except IE8 and one security update would not install; but anyway, running SP2 totally blitzed Windows. Not only that but repair would not work, nor reinstalling with erase previous install selected; only complete reformat and install on C has got it going again.

Of course my User folder is on another drive, how rude of you to suggest otherwise. However, one should not have to rebuild an OS including formatting a drive is an SP is applied. But I've used Windows since forever so have come to expect this kind of nonsense.

I have two computers on my desk, one is a PC and the other is a Mac; I was feeling frustrated, because say what you like about Mac OS X I've never had to rebuilt the entire OS no matter what the update does -- whereas on my Windows PCs I cannot remember the number of times I've had to do this over the years (although few times so far with Vista x64, until yesterday).

mARY jO kINDLY iNCLUDED lINK tO bURN iso, SO ITS BIT EASIER WITH mULTI pARTITIONS OR cOMPS.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=9f073285-b6ef-4297-85ce-f4463d06d6cb

If you Do Have Vista Ultimate 32, You Might Really Want to UpGrade or Clean Install 7 R/C 64...Its' straight From Mind of theULT. errr,EverySoft.

Well its a sad day for me. Sp2 won't install, does a complete install then a "reverting back to original".
After reading above, I think I'll leave well enough alone. I did make a good image before, just in case.

I am dead in the water! I installed Vista 64 SP2. Everything seemed fine until I inserted one of my USB2.0 thumb drives. No go---not with 7 drives I tested. I can no longer use any of my thumb drives after installing SP2. All my drivers are current. Everything else seemed to work so I decided to boot with a thumb drive inserted. BAD idea--that "disabled" my graphic's card drivers for some reason. Eventually I was able to get the GPU working, but still no thumb drives. My system is a standard Vista system with no tweaks or unusual adjustments made to it. I'm certain that more will be heard about the USB problem. As for myself, thank God I have a complete backup I did before installing SP2. This is so typical it makes me want to barf,

For all you guys that are having problems, let me just say that if Vista sp2 was to work as well as winxp before it then Bill G wouldn't be asking you to buy the next greatest OS of all time Win 7, all within 3 years. Now come on, Put your money where your mouth is. I must say tho that at least it didn't bork my machine, it just didn't install.

Installed smoothly on my x64 Ultimate Vista laptop. It seems snappier and even freed up 11GB of storage space too!

dEAR uNKIE: iN SOME CASEx HALF HOUR INSTALL TAKES much LONGER, IF YOU LOOKED AT INSTALL HISTORY SEE ONE OF SMALLER UPDATES DIDN'T STOP WHEN INSTALL COMPLETED, SO STARTED TO INSTALL ThAT ONCE ?again with next. SLOWING DOWN INSTALL PROCESS. THEN THERES FEW FAILURES, AS REBOOT & some unistall, Not whole thing, thou..

INTRESTINGLY, MAJORITY OF INSTALL ISN'T AFfECTED/ Its just wheezer to turn off & restart, once past that, updates will correct situation. Swami is virus too, yet swami can be VT Event or even something simple like ending install, while machine jumps to automatic setting, at same time, losing completed text on install, thus never being right, yet nOT really Wrong.

So Saythe SWAMI....

OK, so I followed the instructions and deleted the 1 foreign language I had installed in order to effect the installation of SP2. I use Vista Ultimate which entitles me to muultiple languages under the so called Vista Ultimate Extras. I figured after installing SP2 I could download the language I need again. But its not available? So when will it be available on Windows Update? Or do I have to uninstall this version of SP2 and wait for the multiple language version of SP2. Gawd dammit I paid for and English version of Vista Ultimate and its supposed to entitle me to additional languages and now MSFT's SP2 upgrade takes it away? WTF? MSFT people and Bill Gates I hope you read this and respond ortherwise expect a class action lawsuit.

I installed SP2 on a laptop and a desktop; Both installed SP2 ok, however I later found the on-board sound card on the desktop stopped working after the install. Reinstalled the Realtek driver and everything looks ok now. Strange, first time I'd ever had a problem with a service pack.

I've tried all the suggested fixes, spent way too many hours and am still stuck at SP1 on my primary work PC. I'll just wait for SP3 or a final release of Windows 7 (running great on a backup unit). . .

Wait, let me check, nope my Ubuntu is up to date.

oh dear for some reason sp2 has deleted all my drivers and windows update refuses to redownload them. it has completely knackered my computer, more like SMELLY POO 2 than service pack 2 LOL.

After installing SP2 Vista will not recognise the Conexant audio hardware on my Compaq Presaro V6000 laptop. New Driver then an uninstall would not get back my sound. I had to use System Restore to get my sound back. This was a proper Windows Update not beta.

Installed SP2 without issue. I have a Toshiba Satellite L355D with Vista Home Basic, stock. Everything still works fine. I got back 35GB from my Hard Drive.

What a pile of rubbish this SP2 has turned out to be! I have a brand new laptop. Updated with Vista SP2, did all the prompted stuff accurately and the rotten thing took literally hours to simply fry my entire system and drivers!

All drivers were wiped with no option or way to reinstall the drivers. Most devices came up as 'unknown device' which also made it IMPOSSIBLE to fix.

I did one more update (another Vista one) and turned off the laptop. Turned it on the next morning to receive message that laptop could not start and did I want to restore to a point where the computer was working properly. Of course, there was no alternative other than to restore, because there was no other way to get in.

Once restored, all drivers are now operational again. I went straight to the Windows Update function and unchecked the 'automatic update' option and changed to 'check for updates but do not download' until I say so.

Taking the laptop to a tech tomorrow. I'm going to let them do the update for me, but not before showing them this webpage!

Glad to know I'm not alone in this enormous problem that Microsloppy has created (yet again)

The more I have the misfortunate to have Vista the more I dream about having XP back. My PC is less than 6 months old yet I am now facing a third full rebuild after watching the Vista Service Pack 2 download murder my hard drive last night. I've been unable to complete a start up repair, thoguh not for the want of trying over the past 5hrs; what stuns me most though is that rather than admit the whole operating system is a duff Microsoft continue to proliferate how great it is even when the reality is it should be scrapped putting the long suffering PC community out of our misery!

SP2 installed just fine, and it's even snappier than before. However it no longer supports my older Bluetooth dongle (which was using the MS generic BT driver, as the manufacturer stopped supporting it a while ago). I now have an excuse to buy a new Bluetooth 2.1 compliant dongle.

Did the SP2 install, then got in a viscious cycle of "service host not responding, service host shutting down and then Windows explorer shutting down all within 5 seconds, then repeat endlessly!!!!!! Did complete restore to reinstall windows vista and then 2 nights to get back through all the friggin' updates! MS SUX

I had no other major problem with Vista SP1 except for those times that my machine wont display anything after exiting from sleep mode. Installed SP2 works like a charm. USB works fine and no driver losses. Let see in the next few days.

Have an absolutely standard Toshiba laptop trunning Vista Home Premium. First attempt at installing SP2 failed after over an hour and reverted. Second attempt killed the PC and it had to be recovered by recovery disc.

My next laptop will have to be a Mac or run Linux if Microsoft go on like this.

6 for 4 and ISATAP downloads don't function either.

Very good of Mr Gates to award me 10 hours rebuild work for being a customer, and I still don't have SP2.

Paul

Like a couple of others, installed SP2 on my Sony Vaio, and no problems. Freed up disk space, and side bar no loads much faster. Nothing special about my system. Checked USB, works fine. Blu-ray works fine. Also, freed up some disk space!

I also tried installing the Vista Service Pack 2 and it would not install and almost completely wrecked my computer. I think Vista sucks wind! Never had I had to completely install my system as many times as I have since upgrading to Vista. Face it Microsoft, it's a bomb and the least you should do is offer each person whom holds a genuine license a stipend for the money they lost and the time spent it takes to rebuild their systems. Perhaps the government ought to make Microsoft "stand trial: just like they have all the rest of those so called crooked propieters of the business world. I will not be buying Windows 7 nor will I install Service Pack 2. I miss XP, but my machine does what I need it to do and I will milk it out til the cows comes home or until Microsoft comes clean. And I think we all know the cows will be coming home before that happens!

And to whomever referred to the Vista Service Pack 2 as being a form of "turd polishing" my hat goes off to you!

I'm the one who originally posted about the USB problems after installing SP2. Microsoft has actually acknowledged this problem! I can't believe it. They have a fix that must be requested, and then they send you the link to the fix in an email. I did that, installed the fix---and was STILL dead in the water without any functioning USB devices. Way to go Microsoft! Finally, I simply uninstalled SP2 and when my system rebooted--I had all my USB back! Not content to believe that all was now well, I did a full restore from an image I made just before the original install of SP2. I'm back to normal, whatever that is. The absolute biggest and most horrific scenario is about to hit me smack in the face-----Microsoft is going to demand that I open my wallet once again--for Windows 7 (Vista SP3). What is that saying about Hell freezing over? I truly believe that the Microsoft Empire is crumbling and there is nothing they can do to fix it. Windows 7 for free to the people who purchased Vista would be a help, but don't count on it. As for me--I'm going to re-do my system once again and revert back to XP. I don't care if Microsoft drops support for it or not--they can go to that place that's freezing over.

I run Vista Business on my dual-core Notebook PC. For my sins, I occasionally sell PCs and, to date, have been happy to push Vista rather than XP (partly because certain Notebook brands come with Vista pre-installed and it is a real pain to back-track to XP). Anyway, I downloaded SP2 yesterday and it crashed my machine - an eternal loop of boot, crash, dump, reboot, etc.

To get around this, I rebooted in SAFE MODE and then used SYSTEM RESTORE to take me back to the point before SP2 was installed. All is now OK.

Of course, Windows Update keeps wanting to reinstall SP2, but I'm not going to allow it!!

it installed fine on my wifes pc and laptop (she dont use linux nor dual boot anything) it just doesnt want to install on my pc or laptop since i use grub and windows "cant find its system drivers" how the hell can it not find files on an active partition. unplug other drives? my laptop is one drive. my pc has another drive but its xp. i would use xp instead but it doesnt seem to operate the 4 cores properly, im thinking it may actually be because it is a xp 32 not 64.

So about two weeks ago I tried installing sp2 on my dual core hp notebook. Had to system restore the first time and, as if I hadn't learned my lesson, tried it again and completely crashed the machine to the point i needed to wipe the hard drive. What a flop.

I installed Vista SP2 on 2 dell desktop, and its has crashed both of them where I needed to do a restore. On one, the Canon MX850 would no longer print, on the other it locked up everything after a 2nd reboot. SP2 will remain hidden, I think its time to take a good look at Linux, Microsoft products are just getting terrible.

Laptop failed to load windows. Had to restore everytime. Finally, after days of testing, figured out it was SP2! Why do this to people? Can't imagine how many novices out there suddenly have a "broken" system!!!

Okay, this might be a totally stupid question for some of you.. I just want to know if this Service Pack 2 refreshes everything in one's computer?? I mean it doesn't delete the files and so on, right?? It's very important to me, as I've lost my files 2 times because of a damaged hard disk, two actually. Please help!

Allowed MS to auto. update. Installed SP2. All fine, right? Go to use next day, can't open ANYTHING, nothing at all. Not even wordpad. Had to hold down power button to cut off comp. Restart took 57min. Finally was able to use System Restore, and restored to before SP2 upgrade. This took over 1.5 hrs. Now, all is good, except the little icon that keeps asking me to update to SP2. Anyone know how to get that removed?

sp2 has made my desktop freeze, i had to hold the power button to turn it off tried to restore with boot disk and all i got was endless reboots, so upon reading these comments tried to go in safe mode and restore to an earlier save point b4 sp2............ the furtherest back i could go was when it installed sp2 ... im now stuck with killdisking my windows partion file and reloading vista FFS MSC fails!

It seems to me that Microsoft should allow all Vista users to update to Windows 7 free of charge, or at least a substantially reduced cost. I am surprised that there isn't an outcry over this. Microsoft foisted a crappy product on the world, and now expect us to pay for a update in able to get the performance that we should have received with Vista.