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Installing SP1 on Windows 7

Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows 7 was released on February 22, and while there haven’t been widespread reports of problems with the installation of it, there does seem to be a higher than normal rate of people having trouble installing the darn thing.

I installed it on three of my home computers. I had no trouble installing SP1 on a 32-bit netbook running Windows 7 Starter, but I ran in to a lot of issues trying to get it to install on two 64-bit computers, one running Windows 7 Ultimate and the other running Windows 7 Home Premium.

The Windows Update based installer, which downloads the SP files from Microsoft via a small executable file, failed repeatedly. Because this might have been due to overloaded Microsoft servers, I then downloaded the entire 900+MB SP file. It seemed to install properly on my Ultimate machine, but the computer did not automatically reboot after install, so I waited 10 minutes and rebooted manually. After the reboot, I received a cryptic error message saying that the “Service Pack was not installed properly” with the reason code of “Operation completed successfully”. I had similar issues with the Home Premium computer.

I ran CHKDSK on both computers, but no errors were found on the disks. In desperation, I downloaded the System Update Readiness Tool and ran it. That, apparently, did the trick.

The file (which is around 100MB for x86 installs and 300MB for x64 installs) runs like any other manually downloaded update or hotfix. There’s no progress bar, so you have no idea who long it will take to run (seems like it took 10 minutes on my triple-core system and slightly less on a quad-core system). Once it’s done you reboot, and SP1 should install without any (more) errors.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-02-27

  • A new track from one of my fav bands… and it's FREE on Amazon? Check it out, folks: http://tinyurl.com/4r7mxw8 Remember: it's FREE! #
  • It's 71F, glorious and sunny in Charlotte. It's 39 in Raleigh. Weird! #
  • Why is the x64 install of SP1 for Win7Server 2008 R2 such a giant pain in the ass? #
  • Anglicans: Wherever there are three, you'll find a fifth. #
  • On a Hot Thursday Night Date with Lisa at Jackson's Cafeteria… #
  • "Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules." #
  • Kickin' it at Sir Ed's with mah peeps! #

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Duh! of the Day

From the March 2011 issue of Shape magazine:

Sofia Vergara Shape
(click to enlarge)

Read the caption: “Confidence is sexy! I’m comfortable with my body and not afraid to show it off”

Really? Sofia Vergara isn’t afraid to “show off her body”? Wow… don’t go out on a limb there, girlfriend! I can’t imagine why Sofia Freakin’ Vergara wouldn’t be afraid to show off her body… can you? What’s next? Blake Griffin “not afraid” to show off his dunking skills? Martin Scorcese “not afraid” to show off his directing skills? Stephen Hawking “not afraid” to show off his mad math skillz? Really, Shape? It all seems more condescending than inspiring to me.

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Ain’t That Peculiar

“Episcopal” means “a church governed by bishops”. Many of the largest Christian denominations are episcopal (little “e’) in nature: the Catholic, Anglican\Episcopal, Lutheran and Orthodox churches are divided into a large geographic area (typically an entire nation) that’s called a province. Each province is headed by either an archbishop or some sort of legislative body, such as House of Bishops in The Episcopal Church in the US or the General Synod in the Church of England in the UK. Each province is subdivided into dioceses, with a bishop at its head, governing from a cathedral. The diocese is then subdivided into parishes, with one church per parish. Although Anglican and Lutheran churches aren’t hierarchical in the same sense that Catholic and Orthodox churches are, the jist of it is that orders come from the top to the bishop, who carries them out at the diocesan level.

England just can’t do anything simply, and that’s where royal peculiars come in. A royal peculiar is a church under the direct jurisdiction of the British monarch instead of a bishop. The most famous royal peculiar is the Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, better known to most as Westminster Abbey.

Of course, the current Queen doesn’t actually the handle day-to-day affairs of Westminster Abbey. That’s handled by a college of canons, hence “collegiate” in the official name. The college is a group of secular priests (as opposed to a monastic order) who run the church. Confusingly, one of the canons also serves as the rector of next-door St. Margaret’s Church, which is the parish church of the Houses of Parliament, and is subject to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London.

Continue reading “Ain’t That Peculiar”

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Quote of the Day

“He got money from the government every month for something the war had done to his insides and so he was obliged not to work. The landlady had always been impressed with the ability to pay. When she found a stream of wealth, she followed it to its source and before long, it was not distinguishable from her own. She felt that the money she paid out in taxes returned to all the worthless pockets in the world, that the government not only sent it to foreign niggers and a-rabs, but wasted it at home on blind fools and on every idiot who could sign his name on a card. She felt justified in getting any of it back that she could. She felt justified in getting anything at all back that she could, money or anything else, as if she had once owned the earth and been dispossessed of it. She couldn’t look at anything steadily without wanting it, and what provoked her most was the thought that there might be something valuable hidden near her, something she couldn’t see.”

– Flannery O’Connor
Wise Blood

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-02-20

  • Woo-hoo! LeBeau staying in Pittsburgh! #
  • I don't care who they replace him with. #FirePaulHewitt #
  • Listening to East Village Radio this morning… and I hear a record SKIP! Haven't heard THAT in years! #
  • "Oh, it is on like Genghis Khan wearing Sean John in Bhutan!” #
  • Do they still make Gaines-Burgers? Hadn't thought about them in years! #
  • Steve jobs is dying. His coffin will be shiny black, slim, and will be dropped repeatedly if AT&T carries it. #
  • OMG! OMG! OMG! New Asobi Seksu is out! #
  • fell asleep to the new Asobi Seksu album last night! Sweet! #

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Friday’s Random Roundup!

– Two geniuses at Stanford have figured out an easy way to double communications bandwidth. Basically, it’s a filter (not unlike noise-canceling headphones) which allows transmitters to receive as they send. Take THAT, modern physics!

– More genius: some folks at Art Lebedev have designed USB thumb drives that can be printed on plain paper and simply thrown away when used. Cost would be mere pennies, so if a friend needed a file, you could just tear one off a “pad” and let him take it.

– Not “genius”, exactly, but at least sanity: a British court recently ruled that an IP address is not a person. In other words, just because the Media Police find an IP address sharing a file, that doesn’t mean the person holding the account is automatically the culprit. Hooray!

– In the “not genius, but clever” department: if you have an account at a URL shortener, remember that most of them offer link tracking. So if you want to know if someone clicked a link in an email, just use the shortener to track their behavior.

– During World War I, British pilots downed German airships… with exploding darts. Remember the Hindenburg disaster? Imagine flying above the Hindenburg in a rickey old biplane… with an exploding dart.. that’s about to recreate the Hindenburg all over again.

– It’s the cutest Puma t-shirt ever!

puma-t-shirt

Have a great weekend, folks!

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The Japanese are Weird: Exhibit A

Every culture has things that other cultures think are strange. Many Muslims, for instance, think it’s strange that Americans allow filthy creatures like dogs into their homes. And many Puerto Ricans think it’s odd that some Americans keep pigs (i.e. food) as pets.

But there’s just something special about the Japanese. I’m not one of those American guys obsessed with Japanese culture, but there is something especially kooky about the Japanese, and it’s far more endearing than the weirdness of German or Turkish culture.

Exhibit A? Kikkoman!