Hopefully someone can help me before I sprout anymore grey hairs. I have an old HP laptop running Vista which I had forgotten the password to. I managed to reset the laptop to manufacture date and am now able to use it. My problem now is that my internet explorer needs to be updated to version 9 and I apparently cannot do this till Vista is upgraded to Service pack 2. I presume that I have to load SP1 first then SP2 ? Not sure if this correct. Anyway my update centre is telling me that I need to upgrade to service pack 1, however it won't load it. Has anyone got any ideas (apart from taking an axe to it). Please note that I am an "oldie" so keep any suggestions at KISS level. Thanks
Old Laptop Running Vista - Updating Internet Explorer and Service Packs
Knitty on 17/01/2017 - 15:08
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yeah was also going to suggest the Microsoft Update Catalog. It's a handy dandy website where you can download the standalone patches and save it to disk rather than waiting for Win Update to detect and do it for you.
http://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=vista%…
Internet Explorer is woefully outdated though, and some websites don't even fully support IE. Consider getting Firefox or it's derivative fork, Pale Moon.
I'd suggest dropping Internet Explorer and using another browser such as google or firefox
A laptop this old really needs to have a Linux distro installed
You should be able to dual boot if you have the disk space
Even if you arent tech saavy a simple linux install will be faster, safer and better than an old Vista install that needs to be put through 2 service pack installs etc
Try Ubuntu Mate or Linux MintAnd provided the hardware is supported in Linux you'd probably have Linux running even before a download of SP1 completes.
Thanks scrimshaw and altomic, I was able to download firefox and can now at least access the internet. Was a bit worried as I had tried to download chrome which as you stated you can not use with Vista. Will have another go at the SP1 and SP2 packs after a few glasses of wine, although now that I can access the internet it isn't so much of a priority. Thanks everyone for your help.
This is the quickest and easiest way to patch your machine if Automatic Update doesn't want to play ball.
- Download and unzip WSUS Offline.
- Run "UpdateGenerator" and select Vista (in the Legacy Products tab). Execute. It will download all relevant Vista SP and security patches.
- When the download is done, go into the "client" folder and run UpdateInstaller. Select your options. Execute. When finished, reboot.
- Repeat step 3 until UpdateInstaller says there are no more updates.
- Manually perform a Windows Update check to find the non-security updates.
The problem with Microsoft Update Catalog is the sheer amount of patches and their dependencies. Do you fancy reading 108 Vista update descriptions to find out the order in which you need to install? WSUS Offline takes care of this problem.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vi…
Try reading through that :)