Ok I can solve most PC problems but I have hit a brick wall here with what I will describe is going on with my setp father's PC...
He lives 4 hours away so we are trying to solve this via the phone and remote connection, remote does not always work cause he is on a poor satellite internet connection so this method some times works and sometimes does not and is very laggy when it does.
His Windows update stopped working back in august 09 and we just found this out trying to solve another problem. I am assuming this started because I was there at the time and most likely made sure his PC was fully updated (drivers and windows updates) but failed to notice that Vista SP2 did not install correctly. What is odd that I surely would have noticed any indication that it failed to install correctly so I am not sure if it was installed prior to me being there or it was done automatically before or after I left. I was very time limited that trip so I didn't get to to everything I wanted to in regards to fine tuning his PC.
The only thing that updates now on his PC is the defender updates, everything else fails. It shows only sp1 installed even though it has tried several times to install sp2. We have tried the SP2 stand alone package and it fails right away. His installed updates shows "no updates installed" which does not allo for removal of any installed updates and as you are aware there ARE updates installed so why are they not showing??
To make things more difficult than helping him over the phone is the fact his son in law built this PC for him and possibly used his own Vista DVD for the install but did not give him a copy of Vista. This is preventing us from doing a repair via the Vista disc and I am not sure if we can do it since he does have SP1 installed. I cannot help him do a fresh install over the phone AND save his data and get everything back to normal. I have read methods of uninstalling both SP's as long as they are still in the TEMP folder but they are gone from there and for some reason his PC barely has any restore points on it and none that will go back far enough to fix this issue.
What I have is a Vista 64 bit system builder version that is my copy and he is running 32 bit Vista...can my disc help him with a repair from the DVD? I am aware the best option is a fresh install and I am actually trying to talk him into just letting me build him a nice system and be done with the old one which was a low grade build anyways.
What we have tried so far is the MS CheckSur, checkdisk, resetting update service by the "net stop/start wuauserv" commands, sfc /scannow, and maybe a few other suggestions found here and other places on tech sites. Nothing has worked except Checkdisk solved some listed issues and his PC does not lock up any more when it comes out of sleep mode.
I sent him an email suggesting he just upgrade to Win7 but he wants to move to 64 bit and he is on 32 bit Vista so there is another issue that cannot be dealt without a fresh install and me not being there.
If anyone has any ideas that I might not have tried please enlighten me! What I am seeing is that SP2 did not install correctly OR an update related to the install of SP2 failed and now every critical update except defender updates all fail 100% and he gets various different update error in which I have all searched on MS site and have tried everything thing they suggested and last thing they say to do is a repair.
He lives 4 hours away so we are trying to solve this via the phone and remote connection, remote does not always work cause he is on a poor satellite internet connection so this method some times works and sometimes does not and is very laggy when it does.
His Windows update stopped working back in august 09 and we just found this out trying to solve another problem. I am assuming this started because I was there at the time and most likely made sure his PC was fully updated (drivers and windows updates) but failed to notice that Vista SP2 did not install correctly. What is odd that I surely would have noticed any indication that it failed to install correctly so I am not sure if it was installed prior to me being there or it was done automatically before or after I left. I was very time limited that trip so I didn't get to to everything I wanted to in regards to fine tuning his PC.
The only thing that updates now on his PC is the defender updates, everything else fails. It shows only sp1 installed even though it has tried several times to install sp2. We have tried the SP2 stand alone package and it fails right away. His installed updates shows "no updates installed" which does not allo for removal of any installed updates and as you are aware there ARE updates installed so why are they not showing??
To make things more difficult than helping him over the phone is the fact his son in law built this PC for him and possibly used his own Vista DVD for the install but did not give him a copy of Vista. This is preventing us from doing a repair via the Vista disc and I am not sure if we can do it since he does have SP1 installed. I cannot help him do a fresh install over the phone AND save his data and get everything back to normal. I have read methods of uninstalling both SP's as long as they are still in the TEMP folder but they are gone from there and for some reason his PC barely has any restore points on it and none that will go back far enough to fix this issue.
What I have is a Vista 64 bit system builder version that is my copy and he is running 32 bit Vista...can my disc help him with a repair from the DVD? I am aware the best option is a fresh install and I am actually trying to talk him into just letting me build him a nice system and be done with the old one which was a low grade build anyways.
What we have tried so far is the MS CheckSur, checkdisk, resetting update service by the "net stop/start wuauserv" commands, sfc /scannow, and maybe a few other suggestions found here and other places on tech sites. Nothing has worked except Checkdisk solved some listed issues and his PC does not lock up any more when it comes out of sleep mode.
I sent him an email suggesting he just upgrade to Win7 but he wants to move to 64 bit and he is on 32 bit Vista so there is another issue that cannot be dealt without a fresh install and me not being there.
If anyone has any ideas that I might not have tried please enlighten me! What I am seeing is that SP2 did not install correctly OR an update related to the install of SP2 failed and now every critical update except defender updates all fail 100% and he gets various different update error in which I have all searched on MS site and have tried everything thing they suggested and last thing they say to do is a repair.
My Computer
System One
-
- Manufacturer/Model
- Custom
- CPU
- Amd Athlon X2 6400+ BE
- Motherboard
- ASUS Crosshair 590 SLI
- Memory
- Corsair XMS2 X 4 (8 gigs)
- Graphics Card(s)
- Nvidia 8800 GTS 512 G92(SLI'd)
- Sound Card
- Soundmax
- Monitor(s) Displays
- Samsung Syncmaster 2053BW 20"
- Screen Resolution
- 1680X1050
- Hard Drives
- WD 320, WD 500
- PSU
- Thermaltake Toughpower 850 watt
- Case
- Raidmax Smilodon
- Cooling
- Air cooled,5 case fans
- Keyboard
- Microsoft
- Mouse
- Logitech MX400
- Internet Speed
- 16mbps
