Vista SP2 Error 800736b2 – Application Binding Data Format is Invalid

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I have an old Toshiba Satellite M305D laptop running Vista Home Premium (64-bit) with Service Pack 1.  I’m trying to update the O/S to Service Pack 2 (KB948465).  I’ve tried doing it thru Windows Update.  I’ve also tried downloading the 577 MB standalone installer file and doing the update that way.

No matter which method is used though the SP2 update/installation fails.  It doesn’t fail right away.  It starts out with the installation proceeding normally, and runs for about an hour with no sign of any problems.  It’s only when the installation gets close to the very end that it finally produces an error.  The message from the standalone installer is as follows:

Installation was not successful.
The application binding data format is invalid.
Error: ERROR_SXS_INVALID_ACTCTXDATA_FORMAT(0x800736b2)

My attempt using Windows Update also fails with the same error code, 800736B2.

I’ve tried running “sfc /scannow” in an elevated command prompt to see if it would find any problems.  But unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to work either.  The SFC scan runs for just a couple minutes — getting as far as “Verification 26% complete.”  But at that point the scan aborts and ends.  And the only error message it outputs is as follows:

Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation.

I’ve looked at the resulting CBS.log file from the SFC scan; but even though I see the errors that were logged (in the last 4 lines of the log file), I’m not sure how to use that info to identify what’s causing the problem.

I’ve attached the CBS.log file to my post here.  If anyone knows how to interpret the SFC scan errors from that log, please let me know.  Ultimately my goal here is to simply try to update this old Vista system to SP2.  So any suggestions you have for how to get to that goal would be greatly appreciated.

Just FYI:  Note that I’m deliberately not trying to update this system to a current or more recent version of Windows (e.g., Win 7, 8, or 10).  I hope to keep this system around for a while with Vista specifically for testing purposes.  It’s just that I’d like it to be configured with the most recent (and final) service pack.

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Tom-R wrote:

Error: ERROR_SXS_INVALID_ACTCTXDATA_FORMAT(0x800736b2

Maybe this will help :

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/637f2923-91a4-400c-830e-2d92c4e908ed/the-application-binding-data-format-is-invalid?forum=winformssetup

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[Tom-R]

Thanks for the link.  I actually did come across that forum thread as well.  The interesting part for me was this portion:

Appears to be a problem with the App store and need to clear everything out of the Apps folder:  In our case I removed the 2.0 folder from the APPS folder and the application would install and auto-update once again with no problems.

XP: Remove the 2.0 folder from %userprofile%\Local Settings\Apps
Vista: Remove the 2.0 folder from %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Apps

So in troubleshooting my own issue I did check the %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Apps folder.  In my case though, I didn’t even have a 2.0 folder in the Apps folder.  So there was nothing for me to remove.

But just for good measure I went ahead and removed the entire Apps folder (where the 2.0 folder was reported to have been in that thread).  However, that had no effect on my problem.  Even with the entire Apps folder gone, I still continue to get the same error when installing Vista SP2.  I also get the same errors in the CBS.log when running an SFC scan.  So, at least in my case, the advice in that thread was no help.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Tom-R.

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