Vista - Why SP1 may not be available for you and how to get it

Turn off UAC and try it.

sorry, What's UAC?

User Account Control

Well, I disabled UAC and the update did something different, around 46% of part 3 it restarted the machine in to DOS and then did a File check, then it carried on to 100% of part 3 and said exactly the same thing as before.
" Service pack did not install. Reverting changes. Do not turn off your computer"

Nothing works!
I'm really begining to wish I'd never bought it

I forgot to mention that the only 2 programs I have on the machine is Norton 360 and Call of duty 4, I didn't install anything else after the last time I re-installed Vista.

2 Programs and even call of duty 4 does not work properly!

Strip the computer down to barebones. One stick of ram, one CPU/HSF, video card, hard drive, DVD-ROM. Remove all other adapters and disable everything onboard you don't need.

right ok, sop let me get this stright, Microsoft cannot make an operating system that works, even after all these years, they cannot make a service pack that works. Its their software fighting against their software.

I have wasted 6 days of my life trying to fox my pc so I can actually use it without crashing and now I have to take everything out just to install a service pack.

I don't think you realise just how angry I am at my Vista machine, If I take anything out i can pretty much gaurentee its not going to work nothing else has!

I apologise for my negative attitude but at the end of the day, this should be down to Microsoft to fix not the user.

All that said, I'll try it when I finally calm down!

No, sorry, but you have it *completely* wrong.

SP1 has issues with poorly written ***drivers*** and software. It is not the OSs fault - Vista was in development for well over 2 years - blame your driver and software developers.

Blaming M$ and Vista and SP1 is a poor attempt at scapegoating. Don't fall into that trap. I have installed Vista around 40 times now on many different machines from sub standard machines to my current beast to iMacs under parallels and Boot Camp - and the only time I have issues with SP1 was because of a stupid driver installed on my machine that was preventing SP1s installation.

Now you have it right.

Johngalt,
I will not argue with you, not because you're right, but because I don't see how arguing will solve my issues with vista.
Incidently, all my drivers are signed by Microsoft, so if its poorly written drivers then its Microsofts fault.

I have wasted 6 days trying to get this thing installed. The only reason I want SP1 is to hopefully make this system more stable because as it stands, its constantly crashing. I was hoping that SP1 would solve most of my crash issues but as you well know SP1 will not install on this machine..... I have to uninstall everything now and try again, I can seee this ending up with me removing my hard drive, taking it apart nd writing the data blocks myself!

I tell ya what I'll buy your copy of Vista Ultimate 64bit for a $100 then you can go and buy a copy of XP I'd give ya mine but I've already givin' it away