Since when isn't 7+1 = 8? I lost my whole reply on that one.

You know what guys? I think I'm just going to bag it. I tried installing the SP1 to my laptop and got the same 80070490 error. According to Microsoft the CBS Manifest file is corrupt. What, on both computers as well as the hundreds of others I read about online? Sounds like a Microsoft problem to me and I think they should provide a "simple" fix for it instead of putting me and everybody else through hell. There are 4 updates on both computers that won't take either, otherwise I'm up to date. Gives me a really good reason to spend more time with Ubuntu.

Maybe some day I'll get bored and try the in-place-upgrade when I have no where to go and all day to get there and more assurance that it will work.

Thanks for hanging in there for me.

OK, I'm back - to install SP1. I decided to try the upgrade method after reading that my problem may be related to Windows Upgrade not being able to write to the HD. This time I had a different mindset, i.e., looked at the problem differently. I had totally forgot about our conversation here and your suggestion to use the Upgrade option. I think what my problem has been on both my laptop and my desktop is that I have Ubuntu installed as a dual-boot option. I also forgot about your Activation_Backup suggestion and did the wrong thing while performing the Upgrade. Fortunately I had heeded your suggestion and created the Activation_Backup file when it was first mentioned. And fortunately I hadn't wiped that USB key. Whew! So after coming back here to tell you about this, I found the backup and performed the Activation_Restore even though I had entered my key when I wasn't supposed to. It worked so I'm home free on that one.

I was able to install the SP1 after the upgrade and everything else seems to be back to normal except my dual-boot option is gone. I ran Test_Disk to look at the HD partitions and it appears the Ubuntu partitions are still there. Can you tell me how to restore the dual-boot option? Hopefully I can restore that without killing the Windows Update functioning.

Thanks so much for your help. 

OK.......!! Thanks for that suggestion. The "boot" subject is still foreign to me so I tread very carefully in that area. I tried EasyBCD, didn't really know what I was doing, but got brave and made a change. The first one didn't work, but the second change did. I got a menu of choices, Win7 or Ubuntu and it worked. It did do one thing that puzzles me though. Booting to Win7 is straight forward, but selecting Ubuntu brought up the old purple screen which had the old original menu of choices. How can I get rid of that?

This brings up an idea to try on my desktop. Installing Ubuntu brings up that purple menu and makes Ubuntu the default. I'm going to try and loose that menu, make Win7 the default and then see if SP1 will install. I may be onto something here. Wish me luck.

OK, here's the bottom line. I was not successful in getting SP1 to install any other way than running the UPGRADE. I had to admit defeat when I realized it was taking twice as long trying to find a way around it. So that's done and SP1 is installed. However, this time EasyBCD wouldn't get Ubuntu running. So I'm stuck with a working Windows that runs and a working Ubuntu that I can't access. When I select the Ubuntu option at the boot menu I get this result.

Any ideas how to fix that?

I did get that fixed. Using EasyBCD when I selected the Linux and Grub2 choices it had a default of "automatically" finding the grub menu. That failed and caused the error message. When I told it to look at "Boot", then it worked -- sort of. It still brings up the grub menu even though I edited it and set the delay time to 0. So, for some reason the results are slightly different on my desktop and laptop, but I'm tired of working on it and going to leave it alone for awhile.

Thanks again for all the help.