Since I’m home sick with a headache today, I thought I would try to install XP SP2 on my main machine (an HP Pavilion a520n). After all, it went on with no problems to my wife’s eMachines system a week ago.
My headache is worse. Grrr… Microsoft.
After about ½ way through the install, the message “Access Denied” pops up (with no further information). The installation aborts, and proceeds to uninstall itself. Of course, the final zinger is the message:
Service Pack 2 installation did not complete.
Windows XP has been partially updated and may not work properly.
Translation: Not only did your install fail, and you won’t tell me how to fix it, but you may have left my system unstable afterwards. Good job, Microsoft.
Sheese. If I didn’t need to use Windows for various reasons….
I’ve put in an email support request to HP. This is my second email to them: I keep getting media errors on the DVD Writer 400c, both with Memorex and the recommended HP media. Of course, they want to talk to me about it on the phone, and they can only do that during my work hours, when I’m 35 miles away from the system in question! For the drive, it may just be easier to buy a new one (only $70) and just replace the HP drive.
What else is on the agenda: Tomorrow, gf_guruilla is going to a Women’s Shabbaton at Temple, while I take S&F down to Orange County to visit my dad, and let S&F visit her cousins. Sunday is Religious School for S&F, visiting in a sukkah with a friend, and then dinner with Rabbi Jim.
Here are the gory details. This is what appears to be in the log for the failure:
#E008 Setting registry value HKCR\Interface\{E31FB81B-1335-11D1-8189-0000F87557DB}
#E033 Error 5: Access is denied.
#E065 Parsing AddReg section [Product.Add.Reg] in “c:\49143097592aabbd9aac\i386\update\update.inf” failed. Error 5: Access is denied.
#E064 Parsing install section [ProductInstall.GlobalRegistryChanges.Install] in “c:\49143097592aabbd9aac\i386\update\update.inf” failed. Error 5: Access is denied.
#E008 Setting registry value HKCR\Interface\{E31FB81B-1335-11D1-8189-0000F87557DB}
#E033 Error 5: Access is denied.
#E065 Parsing AddReg section [Product.Add.Reg] in “c:\49143097592aabbd9aac\i386\update\update.inf” failed. Error 5: Access is denied.
#E064 Parsing install section [ProductInstall.GlobalRegistryChanges.Install] in “c:\49143097592aabbd9aac\i386\update\update.inf” failed. Error 5: Access is denied.
I’ve found a Tech Support Forum page that seemed to discuss this. There’s also an article related to Dell Computers on the problem. However, all the pointers in these articles (KB# 873148) to the Microsoft KB article fail. There’s some more info here.
Update #2 (10/2/04 05:29 AM PDT): I took a look at the registry key in question. It doesn’t give administrator access. So the question is: How do I change the registry to give administrators full control on EVERY key?
