After 9 hours with Microsoft Im back online with service pack 1

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Die prematurely tonight!

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[City Builder]

What an ordeal, you can't imagine.  For the past 3 or so weeks I've been trying to install vista service pack 1 and it always fails, so Ive been reading forums trying to figure out what is the cause of this, and finally stumbled upon microsofts own Tech forum where I found out it's free for support for service pack installation issues.

Well it was 2 in the AM and someone had written that they contacted MS and MS rep took control of their computer, solved the situation in one hour and they were good to go, so I figured I'd give it a go.

Well, here it is 11 hours later, and yes other than about 45 minutes of that 11 hours I've had a microsoft rep from India (2 of them actually) taken control of my computer to try to get the service pack to install, the first one screwed up the operating system completely where it would only boot to a black screen with the mouse cursor so he unannouncedly transfered me to tier 3 tech support (also in India to a nice gentleman named David, apparently he was born what ever the major national religion is over there and converted to christianity when just a baby, yeah we had 11 hours almost to talk back and forth), well 11 hours later he figured out a way to get me to the system recovery of the upgrade vista disk, and to a command prompt where I could open notepad, then copy any files that I wanted to save from the old C drive to another drive, took about 30 minutes to copy about 10GB of stuff.

We then went round and round trying to reinstall the operating system and eventually got the dreaded "upgrade" message that the serial number I provided means that I must install vista from my current operating system which no longer existed since I had to format my drive.  He kindly called MS support and got me a full version serial number so that we could continue.

Another hour later and the OS was installed again, and he told me where to go to get the standalone sp1 pack which I did on my laptop and then transfered it to my desktop.

He then said he thought that it should go smoothly now with the install of the service pack but just as he said that the computer went into a reboot and then came up with an error of something like BOOTMGR missing, I knew what that meant, the bios was trying to boot from the wrong drive (I have 4 drives) so David patiently sat on the phone with me as I tried booting from each drive until as it turns out the 4th drive was the one.

Another hour later and the service pack was installed, we said out pleasantrys and our goodbyes and he said he would call me back right before his shift ended to make sure everything went okay (Goodness, can you imagine more than 11 hour shifts?)  Right as I hung up the phone I remembered he said he would give me the new serial number which he said to write down because otherwise it would cost me like 125.00 to get such a serial number.  He had forgotten to give it to me, when he first gave it to me, I had only typed it into the computer but not written it down so I hope he calls me like he said he will and I'll ask him for the serial number.

Anyway, now is the long arduos task of reinstalling everything (NO MORE FRIGGIN' STARDOCK STUFF), not that I can blame them but it seems to me things like window blinds and their other object desktop stuff must work on low level windows files and could in theory anyway cause corruption of the files that we found were corrupt.

So Im back online, no sleep, no medications to keep me awake with a ton of work and all I want to do is go to bed for 4 or 10 hours.

All in all a bad experience, but a nifty experience to see them take control of my computer, move my mouse around, open programs, install stuff etc.

Arrrggghhhhh,.

[crowebird]

Wow man, all I can say is sorry for your troubles, that Is one story, and glad to hear you are back online...
atleast in the end microsoft had someone who could really help you, and is patient in doing so... I mean 11 hours.  I know after that I would probably want a raise, lol.

[pad11]

holy crap CB...holy CRAP!!!

Well, at least you're back...i've had zero problems w/ V-64 bit w/ SP1...none...so hopefully you'll notice an improved performance that will make all the trouble and lack of sleep worth it!

later,
pat!

[City Builder]

I guess they made it worth my while if you think about it they almost paid me $10.00/hour to have them give me tech support since they gave me a FREE full version Windows Vista Home Premium serial number (because we couldn't use my upgrade serial number to install Vista when the original Vista was corrupted), so now anytime I like I can reinstall Vista on my computer without having to have an operating system already in place.  This will be a time saver in the future I know.  I always hated having to reinstall XP just so that I could then reinstall Vista on my computer.  The techie tells me it's worth about $125 or $150 for that serial number so don't lose it.  Yeah right, It's written down now in about 5 different places to ensure I don't.

I asked the tech, if there are windows files corrupt why does vista run flawlessly (other than installing the SP1) and he said that's just the way it is, and that because the SP is a very low level system, everything has to be absolutely perfect for it to install else it wont.

I then yesterday get an email from a guy from Microsoft from the Microsoft Tech forums telling me to go and install some KB.  I had to laugh and email him back and tell him that the KB he suggests that I go and install is the last one that the Tech support installed on my computer before the OS became completely lucid and woudn't load up anymore so to be carefull who he tells to go and install that KB update to.  I also found out that there was an update MS put out that makes it so that I can't even get to the EA.COM website (it's obviously not intentional, but it was a change to Internet Explorer 7.0 update that makes it bomb out trying to load up the EA.com website and my Tiger Woods 2008 golf (online)).

Oh well, for some reason Im still exhausted, but that might be because I've been trying to make up the lost time in WOW to level my toon up some more and catch up with my guild mates.

[Sandra]

11 HOURS GAH!! , you must have the patience of a Saint CB, I'd have reinstalled XP after the first hour
Glad to hear it's all ok now.

[City Builder]

That's what I told Sammantha while I was waiting on them to call me back for 30 minutes.  I said, I just know that they're going to have me reinstall Vista from scratch, and I think Im going to just tell him I'll reinstall XP instead.  But it worked out okay in the end and Heck, I really like having that full version serial number for Vista instead of my upgrade serial number, now in 3 months when it's time to reformat again (maybe I'll make it to 6 months this time) I'll be able to do it from the DVD instead of having to install XP and then install Vista again.

I was really really close to going back to XP.  Sammie still uses XP on her desktop, she's one of those folks that believes if it's not broke, why fix it.  But the thing is, with her XP install, it is broke, every time she shuts down her puter, it tells her on the screen it's preparing to install updates and then never does.  I keep harping on her to make proper backups of her stuff because she designs sets for theaters in google sketchup and doesn't make any backups anywhere so if her HD dies that's it baby, it's ALL gone, work, email, saved games, everything.

Sadly I know that's what it's going to take to get her to finally start backing things up on a regular basis.

Oh well, I can still get to the EA.com website and still play my Tiger Woods 2008 game online, where as before it would only work for about 3 days and then Vista wouldn't connect up to the ea.com website anymore so Im pleased about this situation.

Oh goodness, I've got to start work.  Cya all later.