Windows 7 Fails with Error Code c0000034

Should you get the dreaded “Fatal Error C0000034 Applying update operation 232 of 77899 (progra..)” message when installing Windows 7 Service Pack 1, here’s how to fix it:

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Reboot your computer while it’s starting up.
2. When your computer starts up again, choose the option “Launch Startup Repair”
   
3. When the Startup repair starts, click cancel.
4. Startup Repair send information. After you click cancel it will show a box. Click “Don’t Send”
   
5. Click the link “View advanced options for recovery and support”.
6. In the new window click Command Prompt at the bottom.
   
7. In Command Prompt type this and press enter: %windir%\system32\notepad.exe
8. Notepad will open. In notepad go to File–>Open.
9. Change the type of files notepad views from .txt to All Files
   
10. Now in Notepad, go to C:\Windows\winsxs\ (or whichever drive Windows is installed on, sometimes D:\ )
11. In that folder, find pending.xml and make a copy of it
12. Now open the original pending.xml (it will load really slow because the file is huge)
13. Press CNTRL+F and search for the following exactly: 0000000000000000.cdf-ms
14. Delete the following text (yours will be a little different):
    Your PC might not have all 3 sections of code (, , ). Just make sure you delete section “Checkpoint” and whatever other sections have “000000000000000.cdf-ms”. They will be right next to each other.
    
15. Save the file, close notepad, close command prompt, restart your computer.