Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 failed!

[eyeball]

killerb255 has a good idea with what he is saying, if i was desperate i would certainly try that. but then again if its your companys server... maybe not unless you are feeling lucky lol

[WyW]

Hi!

I got this working when I pointed my %programfiles% back to c:\program files. I had redirected this by design to e:\program files. I got the tip from MS itself.

After the installation succeeded I redirected the variable back to drive e: and rebooted the machine and it worked just fine!

-WyW

ps. I received a couple of tips concerning the Cryptographic service also so that might also fix this.

[cucolinwin]

Thanks WyW, but that is not my case. We have not redirected anything. I'm thinking of uninstalling SP1 and then re-installing SP1 & SP2, or can I install SP2 without installing SP1 first?

thanks for the help

[cluberti]

Service packs are always cumulative.

[gosh]

sp2 includes all the sp1 hotfixes (you can verify this by looking for sp1.cab in the sp2 install)

-gosh

[killerb255]

I assume I did this as I indicated in one of my posts. I downloaded the SP2 file and try to run it locally and still got the same error. If you mean something else, let me know. I don't have IE7. thanks!

No you didn't.

Running the SP2 file locally is NOT the same as an in-place upgrade.

An in-place upgrade is reinstalling the entire operating system on top of itself.

Installing SP2 and running it locally is NOT EVEN CLOSE TO the same thing.

[gosh]

Do you even know what an in place upgrade does?

When you do an in place upgrade, the registry key HKLM\System\Setup, setuptype is changed to 2 i believe. This tells setup we are upgrading (which is what an in place upgrade it).

When setup starts, at the bottom left you'll see very briefly, "deleting folders". Ever wonder what files/folders setup is deleting?

In txtsetup.sif setup deletes everything under Files.DeleteOnUpgrade, and Directories.DeleteOnUpgrade

Then setup copies files. During the install the component .inf's are coded so if a key already exists (which it would on an upgrade), it clobbers it (overwrites it) or keeps it, depending on the code.

So to sum up, an in place upgrade deletes files and folders, then does a regular install, and it's up to the regular .inf's to determine if a registry key or file should be deleted if it already exists.

A service pack basically does the same thing. It deletes files/folders, then it installs the new files/catalogs, then it runs post setup commands to clear caches and things like that.

Overall it is probably better to install a sp first, and if that doesn't work then reinstall. I think it's important to note that a reinstall will reset everything to default, which you might not want to do, whereas a SP will overwrite with the newer stuff, but not everything.

-gosh

[cucolinwin]

Thanks for the help guys. Wouldn't this be risky? The staff here are working on a huge Sharepoint project for months. We have backups in external HDs, but I'm not sure about all the settings they have at the server. To sum up if I un-install SP1 can I directly install SP2 (no need for SP1 first then SP2?) Yes/No?

thanks for all the help..

[coka]

Make sure that you have not redirected the "programfilesdir" from drive C. If yes, redirect it back to C drive, apply SP2, and then redirect it again.

It worked fro me

Coka