Windows XP SP3 upgrade problem

October 20, 2009 XP Windows SP Troubleshooting

I had some problem upgrading my old Windows XP2 machine to XP3 today. Recieving error messages such as:

Service Pack 3 setup error. Access is denied.

Service Pack 3 setup error. Service Pack installation did not complete.

Service Pack 3 Setup could not backup registry value HKCR\.wdp,\Content Type\' 5: Access is denied.

Here is the solution:

Download and install the SubInACL.exe file from Microsoft

Create a .bat file with the following content:

cd /d "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Resource Kits\Tools"
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %windir%\*.* /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\inf\defltbase.inf /db defltbase.sdb /verbose

Run the bat file. Restart when it's done and try install SP3

Notice! The script above is for the English version of Windows (where the admin group is named Administrators. If you run this in localized Windows XP you'll end up with something like this when you run the script:

LookupAccountName : C:\windows\*.*:administrators 1337 Detta säkerhets-ID har felaktig struktur.

Last Syntax Error:WARNING : /grant=administrators=f : Error when checking arguments

Change all occurences in the script above from grant=administrators to grant=administratörer or whatever you admin group is named. If you need to use national characters in the group name use Edit from the command prompt in order to get proper encoding.

Windows XP SP3 upgrade problem

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