New "Supported workaround" for torn Windows 7 SP1 machines

I'm a little late in posting this but The Windows Servicing Guy has posted a supported workaround for torn state installations on Windows 7 SP1. I've tested it myself and can confirm that it works, with a caveat that you'll have to be sure to modify the package name used in the DISM command to suit your situation (see the comments below the post for hints on how to do this).

From what I can tell, this workaround gives you a less intrusive way of getting the ati driver folder rolled back to the appropriate version. It seems to take quite a bit longer but is definitely much better for those who are less confident and don't want to/feel comfortable with extracting the driver folder manually and going through the System Recovery console to put it in place.

Possible fix for torn SP1 machines

Update 16/05/2011 - There's now a supported fix for machines in this state.

Edit 05/05/2011 - Having run this on all of my machines, I can't see anything to show that they're not now fully working. Also, setting the permissions (the long winded stage 4) doesn't seem to be necessary.

Yesterday I came up with a possible fix for getting SP1 correctly installed on a torn machine. I posted a very brief overview of what I'd done over on The Windows Servicing Guy's blog. Here are a more in-depth set of steps and instructions for those who are interested.

Part 1 - Ascertaining if you've got the same problem I did

1. On a torn PC try to install SP1 from the the full file available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=c3202ce6-4056-4059-8a1b-3a9b77cdfdda
2. When it fails, check the log at %windir%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. If you've got the same error I have on all of my torn machines you should see something similar to this towards the end of the log:

Part 2 - Get the missing folder

1. Get hold of your original Windows 7 Installation media.
2. Download 7zip and install.
3. In 7zip file manager navigate to the sources folder on your installation media and double click install.wim. 7zip will expand the wim file.
4. You'll now see a few folders and an xml file. The xml file will tell you which folder you need for your version of windows. In my case folder 3 is Windows 7 Pro
5. 
6. Browse to the FileRepository folder in the appropriate image and copy out the missing folder to a usb drive. In my case this would be the atiilhag.inf_amd64_neutral_951c1812f542740a folder in D:\sources\install.wim\3\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\. I made sure that the ati folder was in its own sub folder on the usb drive as I'm lazy and it made it easier copying it in the next part.

Part 3 - Get the missing folder back in place

1. Boot from your Windows 7 media into recovery console.
2. Plug in your USB drive.
3. Ascertain the drive letters you're gong to be working with. (If you're a GUI person you can always launch notepad.exe from the command prompt to look at drive letters).
4. From the command prompt use xcopy to put the atiilhag.inf_amd64_neutral_951c1812f542740a folder back into the FileRepository folder. As an example, I executed the following commands:
   
   d:
   cd \windows\system32\driverstore\filerepository
   f:
   cd \atidriver
   xcopy *.* /e d:
    
5. exit and restart into windows.

Part 4 - Set the permissions

(Long winded. If anyone would like to send me a shorter way to achieve this, please do!)

1. Browse to %windir%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository
2. Open the properties for the atiilhag.inf_amd64_neutral_951c1812f542740a folder.
3. On the security tab click Advanced, then Owner then the Edit button.
4. Change the owner to Administrators, check "Replace Owner on subcontainers & objects".
5. Click OK 3 times.
6. (Back in the Security tab now) Click Edit then Add.
7. Change the location to your local PC.
8. Type the following into the "Enter object names to select" box: Administrators; Users; NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller
9. Click OK then give TrustedInstaller Full Control.
10. Click OK and then Yes.
11. Click Advanced and then Change permissions.
12. Uncheck "Include inheritable permissions..." then click the Add button.
13. Remove permissions for the Everyone group. Click OK and then Yes.
14. Back on the Owner Tab click Edit then click Other users and groups.
15. Change the location to the local PC, Enter NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller into the "Enter object names to select" box and click OK.
16. Check "Replace Owner on subcontainers..." and click OK
    
    
    Phew! That's the Files in the folder all now set with the right permissions. Nearly there...
17. Click Edit again.
18. Change the owner to Administrators and click OK and OK again (NOTE: do NOT appy to subcontainers!)
19. On the Permissions tab click Change Permissions.
20. Check "Include Inheritable..." and then click Apply and Yes followed by Continue 19 times (as it can't and shouldn't apply to any of the files)
21. Remove all of the "<not inherited>" permissions, Click OK, Yes and then Continue 19 times again.
22. Back on the Owner tab click Edit and then Other users or Groups.
23. Click Location, change it to the Local PC and click OK.
24. Enter SYSTEM in the "Enter object names to select" box and then click OK 5 times until all properties windows are closed.

Part 5 - Remove the partially installed Service Pack

1. Launch an administrative command prompt (Right-click on Command Prompt in the Start Menu and click "Run as Administrator")
2. At the prompt type dism /online /remove-package /packagename:Package_for_KB976932~31bf3856ad264e35~amd64~~6.1.1.17514
3. Hit enter.
4. After a while you'll be prompted to reboot. Type Y to do so.

Part 6 - Install Service Pack 1

1. Launch the SP install from the file you downloaded back in Part 1. With a bit of luck, all should be well.

That's it it's worked on every machine I've tried it on so far. Fingers crossed it helps you too!

Procrastination is the mother of invention

So, I've basically avoided rebuilding any more PCs as yet. My official excuse is that I'm waiting for MS to come up with a fix. The more honest one is that it's a boring and long process and I'd rather work on other things. So I've been spec'ing and ordering the start of this year's hardware refresh which in turn has led me to completely rebuild my MDT/WDS server to include SP1.

It's been an interesting couple of days. Getting the MDT server up and running was as simple as ever and it's always good to see what changes have been made by the latest service packs (in my case I'm now running MDT 2010 on Server 2008 R2 SP1). There were a couple of frustrations though that I thought I'd document.

Our new laptops are Toshiba Portege R700-183 boxes. They have, of course, got a few drivers that Windows doesn't pick up and so I've been working on getting the software installed silently. The first problem I hit was with installing the Bluetooth stack. If you download the Bluetooth driver from Toshiba and extract the executable using something like 7zip, you get two batch files for silent install. Unfortunately silent_install_for_Vista_Win7.bat is badly written imo. Some lines don't account for spaces in the file path whilst others do and there's a user reboot prompt at the end of the file. So how is that silent exactly? I've pasted my amended file below. Anyway, once I'd amended the bat file and added it as an application that took care of the BlueTooth. The same process applied to the FingerPrint utility but the silent install for that one actually works out of the box.

Anyway the second problem was probably more down to me rather than anything else. I always like to have the latest drivers if I'm doing a fresh build so, wherever possible, I'll use the drivers from Windows Update rather than embedding them into MDT. I'd noticed that the video, wireless and 'intel management engine interface' drivers were all available from Windows Update along with the Toshiba HDD Protection Shock Sensor Driver, which doesn't show up as unknown hardware in Device Manager but I'll take it anyway thanks! So... I wanted to use these, but of course they're not all available via my WSUS server. The sensible solution seemed to me to create a prestage OU with Group Policy inheritance blocked, find out how to put a computer into the prestage OU when deploying via MDT and move it to the live OU at the end.

Luckily for me it's a pretty simple process thanks to the incredible development work that's gone on over at the MDT Customization Project on Codeplex. I won't replicate their work here but if you're interested in achieving the same thing I have, take a look at Maik Koster's blog post on Moving Computers in Active Directory During MDT Deployments - Step by Step. It's incredibly simple and the web service works like a dream.

So I've now got a lovely clean new image for deploying Windows 7 SP1 to any new computers. At some point next week I'll test it out on the older machines I have in case I need it for a rebulid. It'll probably need a few extra drivers but now that I've got the Windows Update step of the MDT Task Sequence pointing at Microsoft instead of my WSUS server, I'm hoping that it won't be that many.

silent_install_for_Vista_Win7.bat :

@echo off
echo Execute this script as Administrator (right mouse click on the bat-file and select "Run as administrator")
echo Silent Bluetooth stack installation in progress.
echo Please wait until it is finished.
echo ****************************************************************************

REM Removing old BT-Stack ... if installed
msiexec.exe /x"{CEBB6BFB-D708-4F99-A633-BC2600E01EF6}" /qn

REM enable AS.ini for silent installation

IF EXIST "%~dp0x64\Program Files\Toshiba\Bluetooth Toshiba Stack\AS.orig.ini" GOTO FCOPY
move "%~dp0x64\Program Files\Toshiba\Bluetooth Toshiba Stack\AS.ini" "%~dp0x64\Program Files\Toshiba\Bluetooth Toshiba Stack\AS.orig.ini"
:FCOPY
echo Copy as.silent.ini to as.ini
copy "%~dp0as.silent.ini" "%~dp0x64\Program Files\Toshiba\Bluetooth Toshiba Stack\AS.ini"


REM Removing BTmon ... if installed
REM echo Try to remove BTmon if installed
REM "C:\Program Files (x86)\InstallShield Installation Information\{61539202-097E-487E-9237-B291AB56D54C}\setup.exe" -runfromtemp -l0x0009 -removeonly




REM Installing new BT-Stack ... in silent mode
"%~dp0x64\setup.exe" /s /v"/qn REBOOT=ReallySuppress ALLUSERS=1"

REM Restore original AS.ini
del "%~dp0x64\Program Files\Toshiba\Bluetooth Toshiba Stack\AS.ini" /F /Q /S
move "%~dp0x64\Program Files\Toshiba\Bluetooth Toshiba Stack\AS.orig.ini" "%~dp0x64\Program Files\Toshiba\Bluetooth Toshiba Stack\AS.ini"


echo ****************************************************************************
echo Suppress Wireless Warning window
echo.
REG.exe ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Toshiba\WirelessAPL\BTWLANDP" /v DisplayFlag /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
echo ****************************************************************************
echo Disable SystemWakeup
echo.
REG.exe ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tosrfusb\Parameters" /v EnableSystemWakeup /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
echo ****************************************************************************


echo ###### INSTALLATION FINISHED SUCCESSFULLY #########

:start
REM Following line added to make it properly silent
goto no
REM echo "Reboot now? [Yes/No]"
REM choice /C:YN
REM if ERRORLEVEL 2 goto no
REM if ERRORLEVEL 1 goto yes
REM goto start

REM :yes
REM echo Your system will reboot in a few seconds !!!
REM shutdown -r -f -t 18

:no
exit

More SP1 Observations

Since carrying out the in-place upgrade using Windows 7 x64 SP1 media I've discovered a couple of issues.

Firstly, certain windows features are turned off for some reason. The main three are Internet Explorer 8, .Net 3.5 and Windows Search. It's a simple matter to turn them back on but it's worth noting as the absence of these things can cause other problems. In my case, the absence of .Net 3.5 caused the Intel graphics tray application to stop working.

Secondly, the RSAT tools are missing and the current release of the RSAT tools is for pre-SP1 only. Microsoft have documented this at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2517239/en-us and are planning to release an updated version of the tool at some point in the future. There's a workaround at http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=150221 but given the limited success of the recent pending.xml workaround, I'll wait for the official release!

UPDATE ON 13-Apr-2011: The RSAT tools for SP1 have been released and are available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=7d2f6ad7-656b-4313-a005-4e344e43997d&displaylang=en

No success with a fix so have performed an upgrade install

Further to my posts earlier this week., I couldn't find anything anywhere in the registry about a pending reboot (having looked in all of the usual places such as HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager etc).

Safe Mode install also rendered the pending reboot message.

Having tried no end of combinations of restart, sfc /scannow and the System Update Readiness Tool I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to find a fix. I'll wait to see if Microsoft come up with one but I'm not holding my breath.

As a last resort I've tested performing an Upgrade install of Windows from Media with SP1 already integrated and that works. SP1 reports as correctly installed and everything seems right with the world. It takes absolute AGES though so be prepared for a long wait. Also reported that .Net 4 needed to be repaired following the install but it took care of this automatically and, another reboot later, everything seems to be back to normal. The one major problem with this method is that it wants a new Product Key to be entered so this could cause you further problems and I'm not sure what the licensing implications are there.

If anyone is reading this as they have th c34 error, MS have a fix now that doesn't break things. You can find the step by step instructions here.

Further SP1 troubleshooting steps

ManfredS's fix didn't work for me. Well, it got me another step along the road, although it may turn out to have been a sidestep more than anything else.

I now get the message that "The Windows 7 Service Pack Installation cannot proceed until your computer is restarted. Please restart your computer and try again."

It doesn't matter how many time I reboot, it doesn't help. *sigh*

Have also tried JStar333's similar fix detailed here but there was no difference.

Going to see if there's something in the registry about the pending reboot and, if not, I'll try a Safe mode install.

Windows 7 SP1 x64 fails with fatal error c0000034 when installed via WSUS

UPDATE: If you have the above error message right now, MS have posted a fix which should get you back up and running. This will not help if you've already carried out the pending.xml edit ot the SetupExecute registry edit to get around the problem and are stuck in a 'torn' state where your system will not complete the update to SP1.

Blogging about this one to keep track of what I've done/am doing to troubleshoot it. I'll try to write it up if I ever get a solution in case it's useful to others.
The Problem:

Having tested the install of SP1 manually on 3 machines, decided that it seemed stable and so decided to roll it out across the organisation (approx 30 desktops and 6 laptops) via WSUS. Upon restarting following the install, nearly all of the machines froze on a black screen with a fatal error C0000034 error message.

Troublehsooting:

Inital (sllightly) panicked Googling turned up a couple of suggestions, mainly on this thread over at TechNet forums.

Andre.Ziegler suggested running DISM /image:C:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions from the Windows Recovery Environment but that failed with Error 2.

Suggestions to restore using a recovery point were useless as it would appear that installing SP1 deletes all recovery points. This occurs even when installing SP1 manually without any (obvious) error messages.

Renaming/deleting the pending.xml file from winsxs doesn't help as the system get's stuck on the starting Windows screen.

Thiswoot suggests editing the pending.xml file to remove all references to _0000000000000000.cdf-ms. This works, however many are warning against this as a resolution method as it could leave one's machine "in an even worse state". How this state could be worse though I'm still not sure, especially as it would appear that some people are being advised to completely rebuild their machines or setup a dual boot to 'resolve' the issue.

Despite getting the machine back up and running, it would still appear that SP1 didn't install correctly. Although SP1 is listed in the System Properties, there is no way of uninstalling it via the Control Panel. In fact, it would appear that all of the updates contained within SP1 are listed seperately with an install date that matches the SP1 failed install.

A prefered method as reproduced here gives two options. Option 1 is a no go as it requires System Restore Points. Option 2 works just as well as the pending.xml edit and produces the same result i.e. SP1 has a part install.
The SetupExecute method originally posted here has been superceded. However, that's another method that I used in my original troubleshooting process.

With either of these fixes we end up with a computer which has a part install of SP1 which cannot be uninstalled via Control Panel (I am yet to try the Command Prompt method) and cannot have a full install applied over the top as it fails with the 0x800f0a13 error. Note: Driver Sweeper has never been run on any of the affected machines. The article also mentions DriverCleanerDotNet and, unless this is some part of WDS or MDT, that hasn't touched the machines either.

Next Planned Troubleshooting Steps:

Attempt to resolve the 0x800f0a13.
 - Have already taken some steps towards this. Extracting the relevant folders from the install.wim to windows\winsxs doesn't work and requires taking ownership/changing permissions on the winsxs folder. Next plan is to try the suggested fix in the comment by ManfredS dated Fri, Mar 11 2011 7:15 AM.

Try a Command Prompt uninstall of SP1.
 - Don't hold out much hope for this one.

Wait for someone else/MS to come up with a solution.
 - Seems to be a lot of activity on the problem so fingers crossed here.

That's it for now. More updates to follow