There's something wrong with my vista

Yeah, I had the 60-day trial of office 2007 and I uninstalled it along with the activation assistant.
Then yesterday I tried installing office 2007 and I got error 1935. This is supposedly an error with the net framework, so I uninstalled and reinstalled version 3.5 SP1. But then it did the same error again. Then I noticed that I had updates in the start menu. So I did these and it went to the vista screen. But after step 1 of 5, it said shutting down and shut down. When going back into vista, the update wasn't done. So I went into windows update and had something about the net framework to be updated. I did that and it worked. But now my office still doesn't work and when I go to windows update, it now shows an error 80070424, so windows update doesn't work either now..

I did a restore to a point before the uninstall of office trial and activation assistant, but now the office just partially works. It says ''The setup controller has encountered a problem during install bla bla. '' So I checked the log files and the error shows up as ''Error: Cannot locate branding xml file at the expected path [C:\PROGRA~2\COMMON~1\MICROS~1\OFFICE12\OFFICE~1\Office.en-us\BRANDING.XML] Type: FileNotFound.''
And windows update still shows the error.

I think all these are consequences of something wrong somewhere in vista. Can someone help me solve the puzzle

I'm running Vista business 64-bit SP1. I wonder if upgrading to SP2 could overwrite whatever's wrong with it and run ok after?

I honestly don't think it's a virus or malware. I am precautious about where I go on the web and I have avast stopping the viruses before they try aything bad.

*EDIT* Actually, office works great. The setup failing is actually the activation I think, so basically I broke the activation for office but office still works. That's kinda funny cuz I don't need to activate it and the deadline went away Lol. I have no idea how it ended up like that and I PURCHASED microsoft office 2007 anyways so mods don't think I'm spreading countermeasures to office activation. thx I still have the windows update bug tho :/

 

have to tried clearing the Windows Update logs? do a google search for that, and you'll find a bunch of tutorials, and that may solve your problem. also, have you tried googling the error code you get in windows update? it may point you to the specific culprit, and allow you to correct it, restoring your ability to update... just food for thought, not trying to flame.


ev

 

Yeah I tried the most common solutions on google and microsoft's site, that's why I'm asking here

 

For the Windows update error - error 80070424 - there is a fix listed in this TechNet forum thread that may help with that issue.

You may also have to uninstall and reinstall the Windows update agent.

On the 1935 error, there's an annotated MSDN blog entry on Troubleshooting 1935 and 2908 errors during installation that might prove helpful.

 

Yeah tried everything including what's in your thread Shyster, but thanks for the help. Could this be a result of uninstalling using programs and features of control panel instead of let's say a uninstaller for the software?

 

I doubt it; either the control panel runs the uninstaller that came with the software, or else it uninstalls using the record the OS made when the program was installed. In the first case, it wouldn't be any worse, and in the second it might be better since it would have a first-hand record of exactly what got changed/added when the program was installed.

Since your problem stems from Office, there is a Microsoft knowledgebase article that might be relevant to you: KB928218 deals with "How to manually uninstall the 2007 Office system if you cannot uninstall it by using the "Add or Remove Programs" feature" (it also applies to the _Vista Programs and Features function). See if anything described in there might help you to yank the leftover bits of the first package you tried to uninstall.

 

I think the problem might be more with the net framework. Its either one of them. Anyway I tried about 15 solutions from different forums and it seems all the solutions only work with 32-bit vista. Anyway I'm reformatting and restoring to my image from when I got the laptop. I loose my dual boot tho :/. Sucks.

I will go mess with office again and see if it is the net framework or office. I don't like it when vista wins over me.

EDIT* Umm, I restored from an image backup, and the error in windows update is still there?? How's that possible?? It reformatted, took my image from my external hdd (that didn't have this error) and put it on my hdd?? How the hell can that error be still there

 

I'm guessing that you didn't see the error manifesting itself when you made the image, then?

 

The error wasn't there when I did the image. I was still able to do windows updates till about a week ago, and that I am 100% sure about it. That's why I don't understand why the error came back. I mean, it formatted, used the image.. I just don't get it. Does the restore use any of the files on the OS already installed?

And I tried upgrading to SP2, but the same error came up sigh..
So no more updates for me till win 7 I guess..
Or I could do a fresh install. Which I won't.

 

That would depend on what you used to make the image, whether it was a full clone of the drive, or just a copyset of the files necessary to restore a working OS.

If you didn't use a full cloned image that you re-cloned back onto the internal hard drive, then it may just have restored system-related files and registry entries, which may have left you with a still-compromised version of the update utility.