Language pack fails to install in Windows 8

Yesterday I have encountered a major problem with installing a language pack on a brand new Lenovo G585 laptop. The language pack would fail to install each time I tried. After hours of research, trial and error - I came to the conclusion that there is no way but to restore the factory image of the laptop to successfully install the language pack.

Cause:

What causes this problem are certain updates that you might install before installing the language pack. My suspicion is that the update KB2821895 is responsible for this problem, but I can not confirm it. I can only confirm that this update CANNOT be uninstalled and I uninstalled all new updates that came after it to no avail.

Which solutions do not work:

1. Trying to install the language pack again from Control Panel after you receive the error.
2. Trying to install the language pack in Safe Mode or using Clean Boot.
3. Disabling or uninstalling antivirus software or firewall.
4. Deleting or renaming the SoftwareDistribution folder inside the Windows folder.
5. Using LPKsetup or LPKinstall to install the language pack (if you have the language pack as the CAB file).
6. Using DISM to install the language pack inside command line interface.
7. Using DISM to restore the health of the system image.
8. Refreshing the Windows 8 installation without removing user files also does not help.
9. As mentioned above, uninstalling the updates that came after you started Windows 8 for the first time but before trying to install the language pack.

Also you might be successful in installing a different language pack from the one you initially planned to install.

What solution does work (as till today - 31/08/13):

Clean installation of Windows 8 or factory image restore of Windows 8.
Your goal is to install the language pack as the first thing you do when Windows 8 is operational for the first time after installation or restoration of the factory image.
Best idea is also to disable the Automatic Updates until you have finished successfully installing the language pack.

What to do when your computer lags and there are no viruses/malware found.

Sometimes Windows may start strangely lagging. Open programs become non-responsive for a few seconds or tens of seconds, and you may see the hard drive light flashing rapidly or being lit continuously. This may be caused by a few factors.

Let's assume that there is no malware infection in the system, and there's adequate antiviral protection running. Let's also assume that the hard drive of the system is in good health.

If the PC start up is extremely slow, with hard drive light constantly lit, and all programs loading very slowly - it may be due to a "DMA step-down" - Windows is designed to step down one DMA speed after it encounters a hard drive transfer error, which makes everything work very slowly because of the drive transfer limitation.
In Windows XP - this can be resolved by running a small DMA reset script (available here - download and run the VBS)
In Windows Vista/7 the resetting of DMA speed can be achieved by going into Device Manager and deleting the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller and letting Windows re-install it on its own.

But what if the DMA speed is correct and Windows is still lagging badly? Then it's time to dig deeper and see what keeps that hard drive so busy. A good tool for that is Sysinternals Process Monitor (available here). It shows the "behind the scenes" of Windows running processes and may let you see what is hanging up the system so badly. After running Process Monitor, go to Edit and check "Auto Scroll" to let you see the process logging in real time.

What you should look for is the "WriteFile" operation - it may come in big bunches. Identify the process responsible for it and check out what application is executing all this data writing. Removing or re-installing this application may solve the lagging problem.

Computer goes into standby mode (sleep mode) right after Windows logo animation ends.

What can you do if your computer goes into standby mode right before it reaches desktop while starting up? Do you check the hardware for issues? Do you run error correction on the hard drive? Do you re-install Windows?

This occurrence happens 3 times out of five, so eventually the computer does reach desktop and works fine from then on until the next restart or shutdown, which made troubleshooting more difficult. Disabling standby mode in bios or windows still generates errors doesn't let you start-up properly. I went as far as to reformat and re install Windows, it started fine a few times right after completing installation - but then went back to this routine of going to sleep right after windows logo animation ends.

The solution was quite simple! A STUCK deeply sunken "Sleep" key on the keyboard! I HAD to take pictures.

As you can see - the lighting is dim in the room so it doesn't really catch your eye right away. It's also quite a rare key on the regular keyboards.

Use an automated backup script that will check your backup drive letter.

I have tried many different tools for automated backup, both third party and the ones built into windows, but the best one by far is Robocopy. It is the most robust, stable and reliable tool that you'll ever find to automate backups both in the enterprise environment and at home.

I use Robocopy scripts to mainly create backups onto an external USB drive that can be routinely taken offsite and switched with another external drive.
The biggest problem when using automated backup onto an external drive is the fact that the letter of the drive may change at some point if the drive was unplugged and then re-plugged. This causes your backup procedure to miss the target drive and backup will not run.

Here's an example of a script that overcomes the problem of the changing drive letter.

In this example we run a mirror backup of a server folder onto an external backup drive, and the script will find out whether the backup drive is using drive letter G: or H:

@echo off

IF exist G:\ident.txt (goto run1) ELSE goto run2

 :run1

 robocopy "\\Server\Administration" "G:\Backup\Administration" /MIR /W:0 /R:0 /XF:SHT /LOG:backuplogr.txt /NS /NC /NFL /NDL /NP

 :run2

 robocopy "\\Server\Administration" "H:\Backup\Administration" /MIR /W:0 /R:0 /XF:SHT /LOG:backuplogr.txt /NS /NC /NFL /NDL /NP

We start by creating a procedure that will check for a file called "ident.txt" (could have any other name or extention) - this is an empty file you should create and put in the root folder of your backup drive.
So if the file is present on drive G: - we point the script to a label called "run1" which runs the backup to drive G:. If the file is not present on drive G: (or if there IS no drive G:) we bounce the process to the label called "run2" which will then run the backup onto drive H:.

Robocopy then starts backing up a shared folder called "Administration" located on a server named "Server" onto the the external USB drive.

Abnormal PC shutdowns may come from a very unusual problem.

What do you do when your PC shuts down all of a sudden? Do you check your power connections and cables? Do you test the power supply? Do you check for overheating? What if all of the above checks out fine?

A couple of weeks ago I have ran into a very unusual problem with a Gigabyte G41 with DDR3 motherboard. It was only 2 months old, and when it got to a certain temperature (around 40 degrees C) - the PC would shut down. It was very hard to detect because if the room was air conditioned and wouldn't let the board warm up to this temperature - the machine would run for hours and hours.

Replacing the mobo did the trick.

So if you get a machine that shuts down abnormally after an hour or so, and all usually responsible components check out fine - it may very well be the mobo.

Windows 8 does not let you manage wireless connection profiles.

Recently I have found out that Windows 8 has a major flaw (besides the absent Start panel, app/program confusion, lack of intuitive use, etc etc.) - it is impossible to prioritize your wireless profiles.

Now, when you need to delete an incorrectly set wireless profile - the SSID has to be in range and show up in the list of detected wireless networks, you then need to right click the needed SSID and choose "forget network". Then all you have to do is re-connect to the network with the correct passkey.

It is however not so simple when it comes to managing the priorities of your network profiles. This is when Microsoft makes us choose either a third party wireless management tool (such as one that comes with your wireless network card) or the Command Line Interface.

To prioritize your profiles using CLI you'll need to do the following:
1. Open command prompt using the run box (Windows key + R), type cmd and hit enter.
2. In the command prompt type:

set profileorder name="profile1" interface="Wireless Network Connection" priority=1

Now, "profile1" is the name of the SSID of the network you need to prioritize, and "interface" is the name of the wireless connection interface as it's shown inside "network cconnections" - you can check the name of your wireless interface by going into "Change adapter settings".