I was obviously not the first user to download the Service Pack 1 and install it but I am sure I am the (un)lucky one to have such a bad experience with the installation and the issues I faced afterward. Due to a slow connection at my Home I downloaded Service Pack 1 standalone installer at my Office despite knowing that it is not the one I need to install. Still I thought of giving it a try. It was a big 450 MB file contrary to the one at around 75 MB offered through Windows Update. I came home inserted the thumb drive with Vista Sp1 installer and started installing. Did I mention I am running Windows Vista Ultimate edition?? Halfway through the installation my first encounter with an error “An internal error occurred while installing the service pack.“. Luckily Microsoft is aware of this error so I am not the only one, was bit relaxed to find the Microsoft Article that addresses the exact error. Religiously followed all steps in that and restarted my PC Several times but no go. Wasted 4-5 hrs doing the same steps again and again.

Finally performed a Scandisk with the followingoptions:

- Automatically fix file system errors.

- Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors.

Guess what, I was smiling at the moment as installation was completed successfully and PC was restarted.

But I never knew that the smile was efemeral till I see the desktop. My Vista Ultimate PC with Experience Index of 3.2 is looking like a Windows 2000 PC (picture in left). No Aero feature and Dream Scene was disabled (the sole purpose for which I upgraded to Ultimate). The main thing that came to my mind was the graphics driver. Downloaded the latest graphics driver fro my G33 Express chipset and got back my Aero and Dreamscene. With the rest of the hardware I have not noticed any other issues during or after the installation.

After installation:

Before installing Service Pack 1, Vista was not detecting the 4 GB of RAM I had. It was only showing 3.23GB. But now it shows whole 4GB of Memory installed. The File copy speed has increased over 30%. I was expecting to see a couple of extra dreamscene videos I will check with that and also some other changes in my System and keep posting.

If you have this kind of experience, please share with us… Thanks

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