4 responses to “Vista Service Pack 1 not available on update lists”

1. 

   Yuhong Bao March 20th, 2009 at 07:54

   “There’s rarely any good reason for paying to get a service pack.”
   Or a hotfix. They have to be requested from MS instead of directly downloaded, but they are still free.

2. 

   EP March 20th, 2009 at 22:33

   woody, can you ask DR what model of the Dell laptop he is using? also, is he using a 32bit or a 64bit edition of Vista Premium?

   I used my mom’s Dell Inspiron 640m/e1405 notebook computer with pre-installed Vista Home Basic (32-bit edition) which my family got for her back in June 2007, installed the two updates, updated the problematic drivers to Vista SP1 compatible versions AND Vista SP1 appeared on the Windows Update list.

   strange. could be a screw up with the \SoftwareDistribution\ folder; I may try emptying this folder, reboot and try to run Windows Update again to see if Vista SP1 would be offered.

   or for a last resort, reformat the hard drive, re-install Vista, update all your drivers, disable any anti-virus/anti-spyware programs, then run Windows Update to see if it’ll offer Vista SP1. quite an extreme option but it can work in some cases.

   or just install the full standalone Vista SP1 pack from the Microsoft Download Center.

3. 

   Martyn March 22nd, 2009 at 05:04

   I never got offered SP1 either, but the question is….do I want it?

   Just now I’ve got a nice stable system that doesn’t throw a wobbly every time I sneeze, does SP1 offer enough to risk that?

4. 

   DR March 22nd, 2009 at 11:49

   Many thanks to all who replied. I got it narrowed down to a couple of patches that Microsoft thinks are important, but I can do just fine without. I’m with Martyn, I have a very stable machine so why screw it up!