The more things change..

the more they stay the same.

I bought my Vista Ultimate CD when it came out. Recently, I botched my system so I had to do a clean install. After 2 days, with the exact same HW that I originally installed Vista on 3 years ago, I finally gave up and went to Windows 7. Here's what happened -

I forgot about the 2Gbyte Ram install limitation. Ok, this one is partially my fault. I should have put a note in the box.

After a successfull install, the OS immediately started downloading updates. When the updates were finished installing the computer shut down and never restarted. On a reset, it failed to boot. Vista repair says bad patch and could not fix it. I tried this twice just in case I reset too fast. I think what may be happening is that SP1 may be needed before the updates download but I was too tired to try it.

It turns out all my programs work under Win 7 so in a way it's good but I'd rather have my 2 days back!

I went through the same issues many years ago with an old NT install disk. I understand that an old install disk probably will not work with current auto updates but then the updates should check the build before installing and warn the user. Or there should be a way to get a free, updated install disk.