Vista Service Pack 2 - what should we do?

[earonoff]

In June 2008 I had a dual boot system, Vista and Linux (Kubuntu) using the Linux Boot Manager with Linux coming up first. When I tried to install Vista Service Pack 1 my system was destroyed (although Linux was not affected) and I had to do a clean install (start from a clean C: drive). I then used easyBCD 1.7.1 as the controlling boot manager with Vista coming up first - (I would call it VeryEasyBCD). Now Microsoft is threatening us with Service Pack 2.

Apparently the reason my system was destroyed was because Linux came up first and Windows has to be in charge (i.e., come up first).

What should we do?

Should I completely uninstall EasyBCD and its associated boot manager making it a Vista only system. Then install Vista Service Pack 2. Then use EasyBCD to set up my dual boot system ... or is there an easier way? (To just try to install Servie Pack 2 into the Vista portion of my dual boot system seems too risky.)

Tnx much to anyone who has ideas re this.

Ethan Aronoff
earonoff@ca.rr.com

[Terry60]

Hi Ethan, welcome to NST.
EasyBCD is not a boot manager or a boot loader. It's mainly a GUI for the Vista BCDedit command-line utility, with extra facilities for handling grub and interfacing with other tools.
Whether EasyBCD is installed or uninstalled makes no difference to the Vista bootmgr. It just makes life easier for you in maintaining your BCD.
Vista SP1 replaced the bootmgr module, but your problems with it might have been due to other factors.
Several people had problems because they rebooted when the install had an apparent hang at 99% complete. (It stopped communicating but it was still updating the system). The reboot caused an incomplete update leaving the system unusable.

[PC eye]

There were some problems seen when trying to install SP1 when running a prebuilt system like a Dell where their support site provided a work around to see SP1 finally go on. The one thing you would want to do prior to seeing any large service pack go on is to create a system restore point before the installation just in case something goes wrong.


For the multibooting here SP1 for Vista and SP3 for XP always seem to go right on without any problem while certain hardware combinations apparently see a problem like those seen with Dell models. And yes the service packs being as large as they are do take time to finish installing and then configuring themselves which to some seems like a lock instead of allowing the processes to finish and see the system restarted.

[Computer Guru]

Basically, give it a try and hope for the best

[PC eye]

As long as you keep Vista as the default OS remember to manually create a fresh restore point before seeing the next service pack go on. The installer for SP2 may likely see this anyways.

One other thing that should be added here is making sure you don't select the IT developers link if you go to MS directly instead of allowing the automatic updates to see it go on. For SP1 and SP3 for XP people that made that mistake ran into problems.