(Approx. 278 words)

XP SP3-Access Denied
By Bob Elgines, President & Editor, Colorado River Computer Club, AZ 
www.crcc-az.org
elginesz (at) rraz.net

This article has been obtained from APCUG with the author’s permission for publication by APCUG member groups; all other uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail address above).

I tried installing the Windows XP SP3 upgrade several times and, after talking with Microsoft reps, I shut off my antivirus, updated my BIOS, but nothing seemed to work. Then I decided to do a search and found “Access Denied” information and over 340, 000 other people had used this same area. For some reason a changeable entry in the Register is locked and will not allow SP3 to change it.

First, do a right click on "My Computer" icon and select "Properties" to see if it has been installed.

Here is what you need to do, if the Error message read “Access Denied” or “Service Pack Installation Did Not Complete”. First read your Svcpack.log, located under the Windows folder in case you forgot what the error message said, it should be at the bottom of the log.

Next Backup your Register, then download and install “Subinacl.exe” from www.microsoft/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e8ba3e56-4a91-93cf-ed698Se3927b&displaylang=en

Start Notepad, then enter the following text:
cd /d "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Resource Kits\Tools"
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CURRENT_USER /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subkeyreg HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %SystemDrive% /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
subinacl /subdirectories %windir%\*.* /grant=administrators=f /grant=system=f
secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\repair\secsetup.inf /db secsetup.sdb /verbose

Save As “Reset.cmd”. Now double click on this file. It will take a while to complete its job.

Reboot your computer, you are now ready to install Win ‘XP SP3. Go to windows update if you need to find SP3 update.