Warning. Do not install Vista Service Pack 1 on a system which boots with Grub
 

A friend who was dual booting Vista and Ubuntu with grub has just told me that he has trashed his Vista system with an attempted installation of service pack 1. He can still boot into Ubuntu but Vista gives the blue screen of death.

This is a known issue http://apcmag.com/vista_sp1_wont_ins..._microsoft.htm

So for those of you that are dual-booting and want to keep Vista be warned. Re-install the Vista bootloader before installing the service pack. You can go back to grub later.

Sensible precaution anyway - XP (and Win2K maybe) used to not update service packs if the ntldr code wasn't in the MBR. I just got into the habit of restoring it first then putting grub back later.
Typical M$oft IMHO.

Note this appears to be only an issue for the bitlocker capable versions - "home" users shouldn't be affected.

Stickied in the vain hope that people will read this before posting :)

Interesting.

From what I've read I would have thought Vista SP1 would have simply failed to install, but no damage would have been done (no BSOD). Oh well, I've been wrong before. Happily, the closest I've come to Vista on my own machines is win95! :)

Very nice, I like it. Good job Bill and Ballmer, no more dual booting Vi$ta, maybe one day they'll make it permanent and irreparable. That makes my day, it really does :)

Following the provided link, I now just get comments to the story rather than the actual story, so I can't check this. (To lazy to go googling for other articles. ;) ) But IIRC, MS Windows Vista Ultimate is affected. I would assume some home users are using that.

And people should note that bitlockeer capable versions are affected. It doesn't matter if you are actually using bitlocker. (Another smooth move from MS!)

Just an FYI, I have Ubuntu and Vista Business dual booting on my home computer and Vista SP1 installed with no problems for me.

In case it's kind of relevent to the thread: Windows XP Pro SP3 installed on dual boot with grub without incident. Though the advice to take precautions in case it didn't is excellent.

Mostlyharmless, correct My xp/intel and sp3 no problems but sp1 vista HOME/amd trashed trashed vista with acpi.sys corrupt.My Gentoo and grub is fine on the amd
regards
peter

Might I suggest a clarification of the title of this post? It's not entirely accurate, given the problem only affects those running Vista Business or Vista Ultimate. For many of us, this just creates unnecessary confusion!

That was my understanding from reading the original article(s). But some people on this thread are indicating that there are problems beyond that. For example, look at post #9.

Actually, it might be said that there is :eek: "a legitimate security/business reason for" such a check.

Rogue software can try to insert itself at any point, and the bootloader (MBR) is definitely one of those points.

After years of totally-ignoring practical security at a consumer-relations level (while creating a very fine security infrastructure within their operating system... go figger), Microsoft seems to have jumped to "the opposite extreme."

It is actually quite logical for an operating-system to check to see if its initialization-program has been tampered with. Now, I think it's dumb that M$ didn't consider Grub and LILO (since they are perfectly aware of both), but ...

Good thing I read this first.

Thank you.
-AM

i have debian etch and vista home premium sp1 installed. haven't faced any issues as yet..!