Danger! Vista SP1 doesn’t like multiple-OS users
By Triston McIntyre
The list of users who are experiencing more than a little difficulty with the new Service Pack 1 grows longer every day; it seems more and more users who boot multiple operating systems are experiencing grief as well. Before installing Vista Service Pack 1, be sure to check out the boot systems you’re currently using if you use Windows Vista Enterprise or Vista Ultimate, otherwise your PC might end up the victim of a faulty SP1 install.
According to ZDNet, the new service pack for Vista demands access to the system boot loader for Vista as well as the master boot loader; without, you’re gonna have problems.
Both Windows Vista Enterprise and Vista Enterprise utilize a little feature called BitLocker. BitLocker is a security feature that provides encryption to the drives on which those particular versions of Vista are installed.
Because of BitLocker’s security protocols, the Vista Service Pack 1 must have complete control of the boot volumes, both master and system, otherwise BitLocker won’t be able to keep a “chain of trust.” Without that chain of trust, you’re guaranteed a faulty patching process.
The best way to avoid it would be to revert your boot loaders to the standard Vista protocols before applying the patch; obviously once the patch is applied, you can revert your boot loaders to whatever alternative protocols you like.
ZDNet also notes that users who boot from multiple drives would do well to simply revert their respective drives to Vista boot loaders in BIOS, and then switch back. Happy patching!
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on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
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March 31st, 2008
Thanks a lot for this very helpful advice! I think it has been pretty overwhelming for a lot of Vista users to keep track of all the updates (necessary as they have been!) that have fixed a lot of the initial glitches (or tried to!). A lot of users don’t have the kind of time to do patches and learn about all the things they fix in one sitting (what computer consultant or small business owner or any other type of business owner has time to take multiple hours in one day, or perhaps even a full work day to – all in one sitting – learn an entirely new operating system or set of programs?). When you think of it that way, it can feel pretty overwhelming to deal with changes to Vista … or to deal with Vista at all (it’s probably one of the reasons so many people have chosen not to update, even now). It’s nice to have small pieces of information explained and available in installments to help make the process a little less daunting. Thanks again!