You might encounter an issue during the installation of SP1 for Win7/R2 where the installer exits with: 0x800f0a12 This is due to the automount policy for your machine being set to disable. We block the service pack installation in these cases because...

I like to read about how Windows is affecting peoples lives, specifically, the servicing components. One of the common threads I noticed in my recent web trolling was the question “Can I delete the \Windows\Winsxs directory to save space?”...

An often asked question is how to reclaim space after a service pack installation. We've talked about VSP1CLN and COMPCLN for Windows Vista and 2008. Now that SP1 is out, it's time to talk about how to do this on Win7/R2. It's a DISM command now: DISM...

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 may fail to install properly on systems which have had the Driver Sweeper utility from Phyxion run against the Windows image. You could possibly encounter errors 0x800f0a13 or 0x800f0826 in your \Windows\Logs\CBS.log file that...

UPDATED BLOG INFORMATION FOR THIS ISSUE IS NOW LOCATED HERE: http://blogs.technet.com/b/joscon/archive/2011/03/16/new-information-on-error-code-0xc0000034.aspx This blog is being left up for information only I've seen several reports now of the...

Along the same lines as removing items from the Windows component store to save space, we have recently seen a couple of questions come in about the Windows\Installer directory. This is a hidden system directory; it is used by the Windows Installer service...

I know that one of the workarounds everyone is using is editing the pending.xml file and rebooting the machine.  This is seemingly working for everyone that the SetupExecute registry value does not.  I wanted to give a brief rundown as to why...

We currently have a known issue with the RSAT tools ( http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=7d2f6ad7-656b-4313-a005-4e344e43997d&displaylang=en ) for Windows 7 SP1 installations. You will get an error when you attempt to install...

We have updated the KB that deals with this error to include a new script to get users out of the 0xc0000034 condition and allows SP1 to install properly. This fix will only work for users who are currently in a 0xc0000034 state after applying Service...

Sorry about the last of a new posting recently, I'm busy working on a new project here at work. I'm also doing some work on SP1 for Win7/R2, we have a couple of cool features coming with that release. So, does anyone have any topics they'd like me...

One of the most used tools when fixing corruption for Windows Vista, 7, 2008 and 2008 R2 was the System Update and Readiness Tool (KB947821), commonly called CheckSUR. The CheckSUR tool was an excellent way for most people to see what corruption had happened...

I've seen this a couple of times already, enough that I thought we should have some quick content on it. When you attempt to install the standalone package for Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 you might get the following error: 0x800f081f <--This maps...

Now that we’ve had the service pack available for a couple of weeks, I wanted to post a quick note for those of you who have not yet rolled out the service pack to your environment for things you can do before installing Service Pack 1 that might...

I've been asked a lot recently about the CheckSUR utility that our engineers send to customers to assist with servicing corruption issues. I typically ask that all of our engineers run this tool regardless of the "ease" of the potential fix and the utility...

My last post was on CheckSUR and I wanted to follow it up with how you can use the CheckSUR utility to fix corruption errors that CheckSUR might detect, but that cant be fixed with the utility. Typically, the way that CheckSUR works is that it takes...

When installing Service Pack 1 on Windows 7 installations, you may enounter the following error code in the \Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log: 0x8004a029 The log snippet will look similar to the following: 2011-02-21 18:56:58, Error CSI 000006e1 (F) Done...

Seems like this question has come up a lot this past week at work: How much space should I plan to provision for my new Vista, 2008, Win7, R2 installs? This questions comes up in one of two forms. Either an admin is planning a new deployment and...

I have an update for those of you with systems in a torn state. To clarify, torn state systems are those on which the unsupported workaround of deleting the checkpoint from the pending.xml file was used after getting the 0xC0000034 error during SP1 installations...

Recently I have been asked a couple of questions about the \Windows\winsxs\ManifestCache\blobs.bin file and what it does. Specifically, the question I have been asked it why the file takes up the amount of space that it does, or in some cases, grows out...

I’ve seen a couple of issues now where customers are having issues installing roles and features, particularly the .Net Framework 3.5, in Windows 8 and Server 2012.  The general process is that you’ll have an application that needs the older .Net...

A call we receive from time to time is how to enable the rollback of a hotfix when it appears to be in a hung state. Commonly the symptom is that the user has rebooted and is now stuck at a screen which reads "Completing stage 3 of 3" over and over, with...

While I find it a little odd, for some reason this has been the week of DISM requests at work. One of the top requests has been on how you enable features with the DISM utility. I dont know why this is popping up all of the sudden but thought I would...

The CheckSUR utility is now available for Windows 7 and 2008 R2 clients. It can be downloaded from here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/947821 Update: Just a quick note on this because I have had a couple of people ask. This update...

I havent posted in a while because of work I am doing on another project but someone asked me about what comprises the \Winsxs store and it made me remember a really good blog posting done during the development of Win7 that describes where and how that...

Many of you have asked about when the RSAT tools for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 would be available for download. As of this morning, the target download date that I was given is today. UPDATE: Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows® 7...