To anyone who wonders why I complain

Need to install Windows XP Service Pack 2 on my SO's laptop. How hard can that be?

Go to Linux box thinking I can download a CD image, get told to sod off and that only Windows machines can access their website. All I wanted to do was download some files - surely I should be able to use any browser or platform for something so simple?

I go to laptop and install wireless adapter. Install fails with a "'' is not an integer" error message. I re-run setup.exe to reinstall and make sure it is complete, it says it is already installed so I should uninstall. I uninstall, go to reinstall and it says previous install not complete, I should reboot. I reboot, rerun install, fails with same error which I ignore, then it seems to end up working. Sorta.

Then I go to try to configure the network, and after several dialogs I get to one that should let me configure my particular home network. But everything is disabled, I can't change anything, and at the top is a curious option "use Windows to manage wireless settings". Like I was planning on using my toaster? I click on the new icon in the system tray that turns out to be the wireless thingy, and finally it gives me a "wizard" that lets me set up the SSID and WPA key etc. So this is about half an hour after I started, no closer to getting SP2.

I open up Firefox and surf to Microsoft and find XP updates site. It tells me to sod off, saying I must run Internet Explorer.

I open Windows Update in IE, in order to update Windows, it tells me I have to download an update to Windows Update before I can update Windows. I tell it to go ahead, it downloads a bunch of stuff, I restart again.

A warning says I should remove any spyware before installing XP2. So I download and install Microsoft's own AntiSpyware program. This takes something like another 15 minutes to download, install, then run through nearly 20,000 files and something like 9,000 registry keys. Who'd have thought that a configuration database could be abused in order to infect a machine?

Finally the laptop gets a clean bill of health from AntiSpyware, so I go back to Windows Update. I have two options: Quick or Custom. There is no indication that either will give me an actual SP2 download. I choose Quick, thinking I can always add more stuff later.

It displays a progress bar that doesn't show progress, just activity. But not really activity, because it just swooshes this green thing back and forth and doesn't really give me any comfort that it's doing something useful, except every few minutes the hard drive churns for a few seconds. I sit and watch this Quick install for a good 10 minutes or so, with the green thing going back and forth. I'm just about to think it has hung and I should pull the plug when it churns again and lurches forth with the updates list.

The updates list has been censored for my protection, all it does is reassure me that if I simply press 'Install' then my life will be more fulfilled. I click on the 'Details' button, being the curious type. I am expecting to see a big long list of updates, as I know there have been many many security flaws fixed since XP was released, and this machine is way out of date. There is a single entry in the list. It tells me I need to install an update to Windows Update before I can update Windows, and this one will download the updates even better than the last one. Having invested well over 10 minutes in staring at the green activity throbber, and seeing this seems to be the only path to SP2 nirvana, I concede defeat and press install. It churns away, downloads, installs, unpacks, updates, and then informs me I have to reboot. Again.

Once back at the desktop, I reopen Windows Update. This time it churns away for several minutes, and comes back with 19 updates to install. The list is shown below; curiously nearly all of the entries are labelled simply "Windows Security Update (KB123456)" with no other description, nothing to distinguish what it is, which component or program it applies to, what the effect is, the risk, or anything. If you click on an entry, it expands to show some more information. But for all of these entries, the text is the same.

"A security issue blah blah blah..."

There is a "Details" link on the bottom, clicking that reveals another window that pops up. It is supposed to tell me all the details. This is what I see for nearly all of the 19:

"A security issue..."

Completely generic instructions that tell me nothing.

While these downloads are going on, I decide to get informed as my interest is well and truly piqued by the link I spy on the side entitled "How to ensure you get Windows XP SP 2". When I follow this, I get another feelgood page that tells me how wonderful life will be in the Windows universe, especially with my Genuine Windows by my side. All I need to do is make sure I don't have any spyware (check, done that already) and then go to the Windows Update area. Well I'm there already, so - er - am I getting SP2 now, or just bits and pieces? Do I absolutely have to enable "Automatic Updates" and forego all that visibility (or at least the illusion of visiblity and control)?

It takes another age (over half an hour) just for these updates to download and install. Then I have to reboot. Again.

Then I wonder: I don't think I actually have SP2 yet, how do I tell? I go into "My Computer" Properties (where else?) and check - still on SP1. So I go back to Windows Update (lost count now) and rerun it, this time selecting the 'custom' (not express) option. This time, Bingo! It tells me I can install SP2 and my life will be roses, as it will protect me against hackers, worms, trojans and spyware. Oh happy day! I pressed the Install button, and for the past 20 minutes it has been churning away. The status window says at the top: "Downloading..." while below it says "Preparing to download". I don't know which one to believe - is it taking this long just to donwload the thing? What does it have to do to "prepare"?

Well it's after midnight, I'm exhausted. I started this at like 10pm or something. The green shwooshy thing is still reassuringly throbbing away - I hope by morning, it will all be over.

The next morning...

I wake up and shuffle in to the lounge, coffee in hand, ready to test the new installation. And I am greeted not with a message informing me that the installation of SP2 is complete, but a wizard. And it is telling me to press "Next" to actually go ahead and install SP2. After all that, all it had done was download.

I press "Next" and away it churns again, grinding away once more. It goes through a series of "verifying something important" and doesn't seem to get very far when it stops in failure, coming up with the following error message:

[Invalid file in C:\Windows\SoftwareUpdate\{1234-abcd-.........}]
[Ok]

What on earth does that mean? A file that it downloaded itself is 'invalid'? Surely it is not corrupt - it has all these fancy download managers and windows update things to make sure all the happy user ends up with is a happy shiny package. So it gives no useful indication as to what went wrong or why, and the only choice I have is to press "Ok". Then what?

So the installation has failed, I have no idea why or what to do next. I go back to the Windows Update screen and it says the installation has failed, and - lo! - there is an error code. Hooray - I can do a search and find some sort of resolution. It offers me no such option directly; I have to manually go to the Microsoft support site to search the Knowledge Base. A search comes up empty. I try Google. Nothing. So nobody else in the world has ever had this particular error condition, and Microsoft doesn't even know about it. I really do have the Midas touch.

At this point, I do what any veteran Windows user would do: reboot and try again. So once rebooted, back into Windows Update we go, select the "Install Now" option and pray that it doesn't have to download the whole 80Mb again. Thankfully it doesn't, and proceeds to attempt an install again. This time, it makes it through the verification stage, and continues on to actually install the thing for real. I lose track of how long this takes, as I get bored waiting and go off to do something else. Eventually when I come back to check, it has finished and I reboot for what I hope is the last time.

To summarise: the task was to install Service Pack 2, as it is strongly recommended by Microsoft. I followed all the provided instructions to the letter, taking all steps as advised by Microsoft themselves, trying to act as close as possible to the way a regular user would. The entire process took probably over 3 hours, involved countless reboots (I really did lose count) and several mysterious errors.

What I want to know is this: how on earth do regular users cope?