How to Perform In-Place Upgrade of Windows Vista Home Professional amd64

Question

I'm trying to perform an in-place upgrade of Windows Vista Home Professional amd64 but the setup process fails stating that I need to remove Windows PowerShell prior to the upgrade. 
I didn't have http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928439 installed so I couldn't uninstall it.
I checked Windows features and PowerShell and the ISE were listed.
I tried removing it (via optionalfeatures.exe) but it fails with 'An error has occurred. Not all of the features were successfully changed.'
I tried installing http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928439 then removing the Windows feature - same error as above.
I tried installing http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947821 then removing the Windows feature - same error as above.
I tried uninstalling http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928439 then removing the Windows feature - same error as above.
I tried performing an in-placce upgrade again and it continues to say that Windows PowerShell needs to be removed.
I cannot remove PowerShell (or the ISE) via ocsetup.exe as no such option exists according to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff716463.aspx
I tried removing it with DISM via /online /Remove-Package /Disable-Feature, but "DISM does not support servicing Windows Vista with the /Online option."
I tried sfc /scannow again - same 'Windows
Resource Protection' error.
I tried the in-place upgrade again and it still needs PowerShell to be removed.
There have been chkdsks and reboots peppered throughout this process.
I don't know what else to try & I  feel like I'm stuck in a possibly crazy catch 22 situation.
Note: This is a Windows Vista Home Premium SP2 64-bit machine.
For those that need more history on how I got here, I'm going to refer you to my 'Windows
Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation' post in the, incorrectly categorized, Windows 7 forums.  In short:
Whenever I run Windows updates, all the updates fail.  It doesn't matter if I do one, all or something in between - they all fail.
I ran sfc /scannow but that fails with 'Windows
Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation' 
I tried performing an offline scan as well but that failed with the same 'Windows
Resource Protection' error.
Not sure what to do at this point and I don't know what logs would be helpful for you to review at this stage (cbs.log, windowsupdate.log, other?)

Answer 1

Please try below and check if we can boot normally now.
1.
Boot to Recovery console2. Use the backup
System registry hiv to replace the current hiv
In the Recovery Console.
In CMD, go to:
     %systemroot%\System32\Config\
Run: ren system system.old
Go to:
     %systemroot%\System32\Config\regback
Run: copy
     %systemroot%\system32\config\regback\system %systemroot%\system32\config
Restart your computer.
After that, please try to test if the server can boot to normal mode now.
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Any updates,
JuliusPIV?
JuliusPIV
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Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
Apologies for the delay.  I will first try your suggestion above followed by system restore if that fails.
I'll do this over the weekend (if not this evening) and update this post.
Thanks!