the title pretty much sums it up.

The little balloon popped up in the taskbar, telling me I had windows updates ready to INSTALL.

So I clicked it and selected custom install, just so I could see what it was gonna do to my machine (always wise when dealing with Microsoft ).

after this, it said "initializing installation...Done! then, installing Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1...Failed!"

after that screen it went to a final screen of the installation, to show that one upgrade had not been installed (Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1).

So now, I have that annoying icon in my taskbar, and there's no way that I can see of getting rid of it. I wen through a couple of KB articles on microsoft support, but NOTHING that I could find seemed to fit my problem.

lastly, this is considered to be a "critical" update, so even if I go to the microsoft update website, I cannot check the "do not remind me of this update" (or whatever that box says, you know what I mean) box. So it will always appear as an update that I NEED for my pc.

Other possibly relevent info:
►Windows xp service pack 2
►no pirated sofware- so my key should be fine
►all other updates have been up-to-date so far, aside from this one
►latest versions of IE, WMP, Microsoft Office suit (2007)
►have recently posted hijack this logs and gone through a couple of known online scanners (LIKE panda active online scanner) and have a firewall and live virus scanner installed- so I don't believe that it would be any sort of malware doing this
►no other issues that I can think of.NET framework can be stubborn to fix.
First see if it is listed in Add/Remove programs if so remove it.
Travel Here for the Windows Installer clean up utility and run it.
DLoad a fresh copy of .NET 1.1.
Disconnect from the web and disable your Anti-virus program and turn off Windows firewall if it is enabled.
Install .NET 1.1I have several listings of microsoft .net framework, i will try to attach a screenshot.

not sure if this changes what I should do or not, so I'll wait for further instructions.

[saving disk space - old attachment deleted by ADMIN]The others can be left as is...the .NET frameworks are not cumulative as the Service Packs are so just remove 1.1...