Vista - SP1 wont install on my dell 1520 inspiron: error 800f081f

Hi All, I hope somebody can help!

Dell 1520 Inspiron running vista home premium up to date with all updates except SP1.

I have vista set to automatic updating and this has worked well until I noticed that Sp1 had not installed. I tried to do it manually and it starts then after some time it aborts with the message
" An internal error occurred while installing the service pack" error number 800f081f.

I'velooked at the microsoft support page for this problem and have tried all the actions they recommend:

1. Downloaded full standalone SP1 multilanguage 32 bit
2. Disabled Avast (anti-virus)
3. perform hardware scan - no problems
4. run system file checker. Aborted during verification phase (10% complete) with error message "Windows resource protection could not perform requested operation".
5. run memory test - no problems
6. uninstalled avast and performed all the above with same results.

After each action I reboot the computer and tried to install from the standalone version I had downloaded.

My hunch is it could be something to do with the language support versions of vista (I don't know what Dell ship as standard in the UK) but don't know how to find out which one I have.

I've tried to post an email with microsoft but they only support the US And canada via e-mail.

Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated

Thanks.

Hi galehouse and welcome to Vista forums!

Did you have a look there: When you use Automatic Updates to scan for updates or to apply updates to applications that use Windows Installer, you experience issues that involve the Svchost.exe process

Hi,

I have the same issues as galehouse on an Inspirion E1505. SP1 is not available through Windows Update and the manual install gets the 800f081f error. I've tried to get all the current drivers from Dell as detailed in
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is not available for installation from Windows Update and is not offered by Automatic Updates
but that didn't work either.

Thanks Sydney1st for your reply.

having looked at your suggestion it doesn't seem to relate to vista only xp and server 2003.

Any further suggestions appreciated.

Regards

Bryn

Gentelmen(if not sorry).

Your problem has crossed my path many times. Your not going to like my answer.

First off there are many people out there that have your exact make and model systems and have had no problems whatsoever installing SP-1 onto Vista.

The unfortunate ones that can't(here we go).

The only way your going to get to SP-1 and beyond is to get your product key ready.

Find a clean copy of Vista(not your restore disk). If a freind has a copy it "will" work with your key, x86 or x64. Dowmload it from "somewhere" if you can't.

Reinstall Vista with that disk.

Install your AV/FW/Spyware protection, then go online and windows update till your well past SP-1.

Thats all you can do.

How am I so sure?

I work in a Toshiba/Sony/HP/Dell...service center. I do warranty work, in the shop and the feild.

A lot of the restore disk were bad coming off the line. For everybody.

Once the reinstalls are done with a clean disk all updates installed normally.

Sorry.

On the Dell forums, I found a lot of people are having problems with the Sigmatel drivers provided by Dell. These drivers are mentioned in the MS article that I previously listed. I uninstalled the Sigmatel Audio driver from Control Panel, for now I am using a generic MS driver. I gave it some time and now SP1 is available as a download from the Windows Update service. I have not had a chance to install it yet.

Uninstalling the Sigmatel drivers did not help in my case. I am using a Dimension 9200 Dell. Is this an exclusively Dell problem? The posts I am finding about this are several months old, but no solutions anywere, except for a complete reinstall (nice way to spend Christmas). My update history shows a trail back to 20 september of failed Vista SP1 updates, so simply waiting until it resolves itself doesn't seem to do the trick ,-)