BleepingComputer.com: Can't install Vista SP2

Computer, Dell Inspiron 530 running Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit, has been randomly crashing (not my computer) for about 2 mos. I got involved and noticed that SP2 had not been installed. Tried to install SP2, would not install; various responses included many BSODs.
Have done just about every virus/malware scan, nothing found.
Did some research and decided to try to install the Windows Readiness Tool. Had crashes with that, tried editing msconfig and now my latest error message is "LZ expansion utility has stopped working"

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http://speccy.piriform.com/results/Btjx4nPfiQ0HGLGRXHLEXKR

Hope that's it

Also noticed that Java was not updating either, so I tried to clear temp files/cache -> crash. Then tried to update the latest Java -> crash. Then tried to uninstall old Java -> locked up and had to 3 finger restart.

Don't know if anyone can help with this mess, sure would appreciated it.

Can you bring up Windows Updates?

Just from my experince and some 32 million others SP2 for vista has been a bigger dupe than vista it's self, micro has no clue as to how the craped up vista so bad, you can get a $50 upgrade to win7, your best option, or you can spend months and countless hours trying to fix this and still end up going win 7
Vista is way worse than Mulitim every was

This post has been edited by snowghost: 08 November 2010 - 03:38 PM

Those 32 million people have no idea what they are they talking about. SP2 is about the greatest thing that happened to Vista. After installation of SP2 you are now able to get DirectX 11 support on Windows Vista which was only exclusive to Windows 7 at the time of release. SP2 also included a number of performance increasing changes as well.

SO please cite your reliable sources of information.

I have Vista SP2 and I have no issues what so ever, and i can conjure up more people as well who have no issues.

cryptodan, on 08 November 2010 - 03:38 PM, said:

I'm having no problems with Vista SP2. Quite like it in fact. Cryptodan managed to conjure me up without even trying.

Bleeping Advisor- it does some updates, but not the critical ones. It's screwed up from that bad update some time ago and is hopeless.
I spoke to a man in the know today and he advised me to stop wasting my time on it as it will never be right. He advised either clean installing Vista SP2 or Win 7.
To be honest, I would much rather clean install XP and not have to deal with these VISTA/Win 7 issues. I think they both stink as OS and, if I have to stay w/Microsoft, I prefer XP. Just not looking forward to dealing with driver issues.

Has anybody out there done a downgrade from Vista to XP?

What bad update are you talking about? I have received all the updates that other Vista users have gotten, and my machine is stable, clean, and reliable.

If you are having issues installing critical updates, then you maybe infected. Also that man in the know doesn't know anything.

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I appreciate your offer of help, but I agree with snowghost on this one.
This is not my computer, so I don't have access to perform any other scans/etc, nor would I want to aggravate myself any further. It is the most frustrating computer issue I have ever encountered and I have been working with computers for over 30 yrs. Just ridiculous. Would not be using any MS products if I didn't have to.
Check this out re: one of Windows corrupting updates:
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistawu/thread/e5b1beee-2deb-42de-8112-987b8a3b5e9f

Whose computer is this?