[shard92]

just did a system recovery using the recovery partition on a compaq presario sr1838nx. It is windows xp media center sp2 and when it goes to windows update it doesn't allow sp3 but finds 94 critical updates and downloads them but won't install them.

I've tried the things suggested here:

http://www.pchell.co...t_install.shtml

I also added *.microsoft to the trusted list but it still refuses to install the updates....

any other ideas?

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Windows Update Repair Tool:
http://software.hitoma.com/WURT/

[Neil Jones]

Windows Update Repair Tool:
http://software.hitoma.com/WURT/

[shard92]

thanks Neil all that did was increase the critical updates to 95 and still won't install....

any more ideas? I'll keep trying different combos and continue my search on google.

[AitrusSkyy]

Try the standalone package for installing SP3. I always use a standalone package because it is annoying to wait for windows update to scan, download, and attempt to install something then fail (30 minutes of time).

http://www.microsoft...;displaylang=en

Try downloading that and installing it manually.

Note: You need to disable ALL security software during the installation (except for windows firewall). Any other firewall or antivirus or security scanner may block SP3 from completing.

[Broni]

but finds 94 critical updates and downloads them but won't install them

Try to install them, few at a time.

[shard92]

well I down loaded sp3 on that computer and it "failed to save" but I had downloaded simultaneously to this one and so I burned to cd and trying to update that way... don't know it that will fix it or not but at least it will be less to try to get off of update.

[shard92]

Solved! I don't have the exact link right now but it turns out it was all related to microsoft knowledge base article #953356

after installing sp3 that I downloaded on another computer it wouldn't restart.... I went into safemode and told it to not restart on error and got the stop error 0x0000007e.

in a nutshell it boils down to compaq using a windows image made on an intel machine on one with a different brand processor ( amd in this case ). Thanks for those above who helped... filed away the advice above...

---edit---

Ps printing this exchange out and filing in my how to fix windows box!!!

Edited by shard92, 08 October 2008 - 02:34 PM.

[Broni]

Nice

[AitrusSkyy]

Good to hear