Windows Update has messed up my laptop

gatita

Thank you for the reply Egan..but if you had read my post you would have read that on boot up this morning, everything was ok!
and YES, I do have the hologrammed instalation disc, and this worked perfectly THIS MORNING, but NOT last night.

point3

It's the KB971033 Windows Activation Tool update. It looks for errors and tampering with Windows keys.

Aiadi

point3 wrote: »

It's the KB971033 Windows Activation Tool update. It looks for errors and tampering with Windows keys.

Thanks. I thought I'd seen that as it is actually an old update. I thought Rik actually meant that there is one released with the new batch of updates on 12/1/2010. If it is the old one then I have already excluded that from installation..:j

System

point3 wrote: »

It's the KB971033 Windows Activation Tool update. It looks for errors and tampering with Windows keys.

As far as I can see, that update is only applicable to Windows 7

The OP has Windows Vista, so KB971033 should not be the cause of their particular problem (which is now resolved anyway)

Windows Vista uses an ActiveX control for validation via the "Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program" and the validation process is executed whenever you download genuine Microsoft software / updates.

For further info: http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/downloads/faq.aspx