Windows Vista: Service pack 1 / SP1 will not install, and keeps saying it needs to be installed

I found a computer outside of a subway station some time ago. I taped a note there that I would put it on Craigslist's Lost and Found. No answer. There weren't many clues to whom it belonged, but I sent a message to the one person I thought it might be associated with. No reply. I tried to crack the password with some known utilities, but got nowhere. No clue who it goes to.

So, I kept it. It's a 2008 Dell laptop worth about $100 at best. Still, it's newer and has a better battery than my crappy old Acer that takes an hour to boot up. I decided to just wipe out the hard drive and install a new version of Windows. But I wasn't about to pay for a new version of Windows for this old PC.

I tried some Windows 7 upgrades and Windows Vista discs and various old Microsoft verification codes that I had. Waste of time. I gave up and tried Ubuntu 14, which wouldn't even boot up from the drive after it installed. Well, I had a Vista Upgrade Anytime disc and tried that with the Vista Business code on the bottom of the computer. It installed and verified -- great, super!

There were hours and hours of updates and security patches, and I had to download driers from Dell's support site. It wouldn't even connect to a network without a driver for the network card. Anyway, once it got going, it was super fast. After the .NET updates it got slower, but still seems better.

But then it Windows Update stopped updating automatically. It kept telling me Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) needed to be installed. I'd run the installation, and it would come back again and again. Going to Start > Computer > Properties revealed that Service Pack 1 was not installed.

So, I searched for a couple of solutions. I got it to work somehow between these two pages -- neither of which worked for me on their own, but I tried the first one, and have added instructions below to make the second one work.

#1 - https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/4120f8ff-ae6c-437f-a40d-8d48794d9841/services-pack-1-for-vista-home-premium-will-not-install?forum=itprovistasp

#2 - http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-windows_update/windows-vista-service-pack-1-wont-install/007a87a0-0d5a-4aad-880a-c7f343b50205

The Solution that seemed to work for me was to:

• DOWNLOAD SERVICE PACK 1 STAND ALONE (there seems to be 2 versions, this is the 5-language pack) http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30
• MOVE THE FILE TO YOUR DESKTOP
• SHUT DOWN YOUR COMPUTER
• RESTART AND TAP F8 UNTIL YOU GET TO "SAFE MODE" SCREEN
• DOUBLE-CLICK THE SP1 FILE YOU DOWNLOADED.
• FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS -- THE COMPUTER WILL RESTART 3 TIMES.

Good Luck!