Guy Ellis Rocks

This blog has a fair amount of info about this error: blogs.msdn.com/.../8895729.aspx

Relevant part from the previously linked blog:

If you are running into error code 1 but are not running a checked or pre-release build of Windows, then it typically helps to review the .NET Framework 3.5 log files to try to learn more about the root cause of the issue. You can find more information about what log files are produced by .NET Framework 3.5 setup in this (http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2008/04/30/8445569.aspx) blog post, and there is information in this (http://go.microsoft.com/?LinkId=8967044) blog post that describes options for reporting installation failures back to Microsoft for additional investigation.

The logs that are typically the most useful in diagnosing error code 1 are the following:

* %temp%\dd_dotnetfx35install.txt

* %windir%\logs\cbs\cbs.log

* %windir%\WindowsUpdate.log

I tried this update: www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx recommended on a forum which is the System Update Readiness Tool for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition (KB947821) [August 2008] but when I ran it I got a message that said "The update does not apply to your system"

I think that I've finally found the solution to my problem in this posting social.msdn.microsoft.com/.../f46b3f0b-105f-4 and I'm guessing that I have a checked build of Windows Server 2008 instead of a release build. I didn't even know that. Search and install again...

SOLUTION: My last comment was indeed the answer to the problem. At the start of this exercise I didn't even know what a checked build was let alone that I had installed a checked build. (A checked build is a debug build of (in this case) the operating system.)

My mistake was that I had installed the wrong version of Windows Server 2008 and when I reinstalled the correct version everything else worked very smoothly and all the other updates and installs went without a hitch.

Great to hear that this helped someone!