What is Error 8000FFFF when I try to install a Windows Vista Update?

Read the article that everyone's commenting on.
Subscribe to the RSS Feed for comments on this article.

Can you temporarily remove some memory from the system, possibly bypassing the error which prevents it from fixing the problem in the first place?

Ke's advice sounds good. If you take out two gigs, install the update, and then replace the two gigs, that seems like the logical route to solving the problem.

Of course, be it Microsoft, Apple, or Linux, sometimes what seems like the logical route is just going to cause more problems. :-(

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Actually, on forums that have suggested that the problem apparently re-appears
when the memory is re-installed.

Leo
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFGLSDtCMEe9B/8oqERAhk0AJ9G9yifzz+l0r63gz7uEjJClgJTxwCeJaTh
AaO/+kiRgHeq21QZPtg8ZBk=
=ghih
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

> Another symptom of this issue, by the way is this:
> As you can see, Vista reports 3.3gig, and not the
> 4gig of RAM that's actually in the machine.

That's not actually a symptom of this issue, it's a fundamental limitation of 32-bit operating systems. You have a 4GB total address space, which is distributed between Video memory, BIOS, IO cards, networking, PCI hubs, bus bridges, PCI-Express, and finally physical RAM, which only gets the last bite of the pie. In practice, the upper limit for addressed RAM seems to be about 3.2GB. http://www.vistaclues.com/reader-question-maximum-memory-in-32-bit-windows-vista has more info.

One thing to try with errors on a new Dell is http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/, which removes some of the crap Dell preinstalls. Maybe one of Dell's buggy 'utilities' is loading storport.sys or something and preventing it from being updated. Have you tried running the update in safe mode?

(BTW, why aren't you running Aero? I Googled the Latitude D620, and it comes with an Intel GMA950 graphics chip which definitely supports it).

Had the same problem. Vista will only see 3 gig of memory in the 32 bit version. If you want more you need to use the 64 bit version.

Once again I have to show my ignorance. I think I'm slightly more than a beginner but way less than an intermediate computer user. When I read about problems like this I have to ask, "Why didn't Microsoft see this during the years of Beta testing and have a fix for it?" Obviously, since there are other forum postings, this is not an isolated instance. What exactly goes on during Beta testing and who decides what fixes will be implemented?

Mary

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

When any company produces software there's simply no way that absolutely every
problem can be fixed before shipment. Companies have to prioritized the
problems that remain based on expected imapct to the customer. It's even more
complex than that, since fixing a bug also introduces the possibility that new
bugs get introduced in the process.

I'm not trying to make excuses for Microsoft, but the fact is that one of the
hardest decisions about shipping software in any reasonable amount of time is
understanding which bugs you can live with, and which can be fixed later. I've
been there, I've made these hard desicions. If you actually wanted to fix every
single bug, your product would never ship.

In this case the number of people with 4 gig of memory is probably a relatively
small part of the market, so I can understand that this kind of issue might be
deferred for now.

Leo
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFGL7LwCMEe9B/8oqERAvvaAJ9ZJ6aNirdvzWBSoihWP24c3hMpGACfTh2k
cnm1cLNnwwzd86WZD7+OOkM=
=4s8i
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

> Another symptom of this issue, by the way is this:
> As you can see, Vista reports 3.3gig, and not the
> 4gig of RAM that's actually in the machine.

That's not actually a symptom of this issue, it's a fundamental limitation of 32-bit operating systems. You have a 4GB total address space, which is distributed between Video memory, BIOS, IO cards, networking, PCI hubs, bus bridges, PCI-Express, and finally physical RAM, which only gets the last bite of the pie. In practice, the upper limit for addressed RAM seems to be about 3.2GB. http://www.vistaclues.com/reader-question-maximum-memory-in-32-bit-windows-vista has more info.

One thing to try with errors on a new Dell is http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/, which removes some of the crap Dell preinstalls. Maybe one of Dell's buggy 'utilities' is loading storport.sys or something and preventing it from being updated. Have you tried running the update in safe mode?

(BTW, why aren't you running Aero? I Googled the Latitude D620, and it comes with an Intel GMA950 graphics chip which definitely supports it).

^^
What interests me is that I found the same information elsewhere. Sort of curious why Dell is selling computers with that much memory. You would think they should know the limitations of 32 bit processors or at least ship with the work around.

The soup gets thicker - it turns out that many motherboards that host 64-bit processors have 32-bit address limitations - DOH! For example, my system uses the NVidia nForce4 Ultra chipset. It's performed beautifully for me for the last two years. The machine is currently host a dual-core, Athlon 64 CPU. But even if I were to install the 64-bit version of Vista, I'd never see all four gigs of RAM. It turns out that the chipset only has a 32-bit addressing scheme. Vista will never see all four gigs on this box - even the 64-bit version. Bwah! Guess I'll stick with two gigs.

To post a comment on "What is Error 8000FFFF when I try to install a Windows Vista Update?", please return to that article's main page.