Vista service pack 2 failed with code 0x8004402f cannot install service pack 2

[Joe Code]

hello,

first try to install sp2 failed on a vista business x64 with sp1. got
error code 8004402f.

looking for this code but found some 8004xxxx on ms support sites. then
attempted all solutions from ms support, but still same failure on next
boot, system was undoing and rollback sp2, because of failure.

also doing a SFC /SCANNOW and looking for CBS.log for any problems.

after this, i remember, it could be a problem with to less storage on
environment variables TEMP and TMP <defaultsysdrive>:\TEMP and
<defaultsysdrive>:\TMP.

i'm using a ramdrive for both TMP and TEMP with size 1 GB. so it was not
any more 'standard environment'

and exactly this was the problem, this size is to less for updating
service pack 2 on vista x64 (may be also x86).

restoring TEMP to C:\TEMP with enough free space, then SP2 was
installing well.

so if someone from MS is reading this, please make better error messages
for this simple task. thank you.

regards

[Planters]

Windows 7 is Vista.

I have only seen your error code when the tmp or temp folder environment
variables are not correct

[Mark Levitzki]

Just wait for Windows7, damn this Vista was a giant failure

If you format the RAMdisk with NTFS you could enable disk quota so you know
when you're running close to the limit.

Also you could try enabling drive compression to store more data.

Tried the disk quota idea. There's no popup message when you exceed the
warning limit. Probably better off getting a storage space monitor for the
system tray or gadget for sidebar.

[Joe Code]

This could be true, because how knows what exactly vista is doing during
long time upgrade process: desktop installing, shutdown installing (step
1-3) and then again on next booting (step 1-3) and the failure(!) and
rollback everything, cool hmm?

Possible vista does at the time the error happens not load the ramdisk
device driver (QSoft Enterprise x64), so TEMP may be invalid for this
moment.

But nevertheless, it would be easy for MS to check this state and find a
drive with enough space e.g. the system drive(!) to ignore any invalid
TEMP or TMP but make another own temp folder
(.\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\$MS_TEMP_WITH_ENOUGH_SPACE_FOUND or whatever) for
installing any updates and service packes?

Win NT was doing this smarter near 13 y ago, was looking for the biggest
available spaces and unpacking there the package, but also this was a
little stupid when the found an network drive with biggest free space
they took that.

hopefully win7 will be better, but i'm afraid not.

[Joe Code]

Nope, i dont use ntfs for ramdisk, dont need this and dont want this
because more complicated file structure, more problems with SYS_VOL etc.
so i just use simple FAT32. No hidden files/streams, etc. pure FAT.

All data are lost on power off and everything works fine, ok not
everything but most. of course, this vista SP2 failure was very annyoing.

[Gene E. Bloch]

I think it is silly to use a ramdisk for temp/tmp.

1. A chunk of RAM is not available for normal uses.

2. More importantly, what happens if the current contents of temp needs to
exceed the size of the RAM drive? It can't be good.

[Joe Code]

dont agree with you, ram is cheap and therefore no need to scrimp on.
but speed is more important for me. of course, if ramdisk size is to
small, problems could happen, but apps should inform about to small temp
space, dont you think so?

other side, maybe in some years we have more cheap and fast ssd instead
of hdd, this discussion will be obsolete.

[Gene E. Bloch]

Read your own original post in this thread, especially with regard to my
point #2 :-)

It's your choice, of course. I won't argue any more; we would just continue
to disagree and get annoyed at each other (but let's not do that, OK?).

But first - I just thought of one other thing: it might be that some
programs (especially installers & uninstallers) leave files in %temp% in
order to complete some task or tasks after rebooting. Since RAM drives
don't survive the restart, this would create trouble.