Cannot install SP2 update - or any updates

[Guest]

A friend's XP Home PC that I built for them, came back to me with a small
hardware issue that I repaired, but now that I have it, I figured I'd update
it to SP2 and make certian that all security updates were installed using my
high-speed Internet access. The problem is, however, that I cannot seem to
use "Windows Update" to install anything, but must manually install all of
the "KBxxxxxx" updates, one-by-one. And now I find that I CANNOT install the
SP2 update no matter what I try. I downloaded the 266 MB SP2
"administrator's install" and tried to use this but I consistently get an
error message shortly into the installation about "not able to read or write
the database..." (or something to this effect). As a guess, its almost as if
the "registry" were "locked" or something...? Does anyone have a suggestion
as to how to deal with this, short of "re-installing" Windows? My thought
was that this might be the only means to cope with this - but even this may
not actually deal with this issue, I fear ....

 

[Guest]

Hello,
You could possibly request Microsoft's free SP2 cd. Also, you could check
for spyware, adware, or virus's they can be bad at times.

Marcus

 

[Torgeir Bakken \(MVP\)]

(snip) And now I find that I CANNOT install the SP2 update no
matter what I try. I downloaded the 266 MB SP2 "administrator's
install" and tried to use this but I consistently get an error
message shortly into the installation about "not able to read
or write the database..." (or something to this effect).

Hi

Go to
http://www.michna.com/kb/WxSP2.htm#Cannot_install_Service_Pack_2

Look for fixdb.bat under "Error 0x800710D9 Unable to read from
or write to the database". Download and run it.