Need Help With Vista

My grand daughter has a Dell Inspiron 1420 with Vista. The original owner (her step brother) had the hard drive full. When it tried to update it locked up. I went into the Dell Restore and reloaded the system. It does fine except for one thing. It keeps wanting to download and install Service Pack 1. It gives an error Code 800F081F. I did some research on line and saw System Update Readiness Tool. That didn't help. What can I do? Please!

 

What did System update tool do/recommend? Maybe post the logs, see
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947821

 

I tried Method 1 and that didn't show the tool. I went Method 2 and downloaded the tool. On reboot it ran a scan then closed. It seems like the download is messed up somehow and it can't read it.

 

If the hard drive is full, you should uninstall unnecessary programs, use a junk cleaner like CCleaner (not a registry cleaner), delete the largest unneeded files (easy with something like SpaceSniffer), and remove all system restore points except for the latest.

 

The hard drive is no way near full. I took care of that when I reloaded the system.

 

after you ran the tool did you try reinstalling the service pack? Did the tool leave a log ? Did you try stand alone SP1 install?
"..
%SYSTEMROOT%\Logs\CBS\CheckSUR.log
%SYSTEMROOT%\Logs\CBS\CheckSUR.persist.log
.."

 

The tool didn't leave a log. I didn't try a stand alone SP1.

 

I have tried a stand alone SP1. It downloaded 2 files to the download folder. Neither one would open. It said Windows was unable to open them.

 

It should be just one executable file (.exe) and it will be big, around 435 MB.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935791#Download

Click the above link and the page that opens has several places where it says "Click here to download SP1." Click one of them and you'll be presented with all the different versions. Find the appropriate one and click the link. It'll take you to a download page. Double check all the information to make sure it's the one you want and click the download link. More than likely you'll be diverted to yet another page where the download is supposed to start automatically but it never does for me. If it doesn't just click the "Start download" link and it should start.

Sometimes after you restore or reinstall the operating system Windows can be temperamental. If it doesn't install the first time try it again, or download the installer again then try it.

 

I have downloaded SP1 to my computer,then put it on a flash drive. I will see if I can update her laptop the next time I can get my hands on it. She was visiting this past week end. How can I tell if she has the latest Windows Installer?

 

Run Windows update and see what it offers. It will probably be a long list so if unsure post it here and we can check. But essentially, exclude service pack(s) and install the other updates

 

I think if you have Vista you should have the required installer. The system requirement information says you only need Vista. Usually it'll say if you need to update the installer. You can see which installer version you have by entering msiexec /? in the Run box or command prompt.

 

Thanks for the help.

 

Cudni, if I try to run Windows update it just seems to bypass a scan for updates. It just says you have this SP1 to update.