Okay, so to begin our story, my b/f gets a new vista machine. Within a week vista is starting up with an "unauthorized change has been made to windows, certain features are no longer available, etc etc" error message. Neither of us can figure out for sure what is causing it. Sometimes its there, sometimes its not, but each time it is there he cant access the desktop. The only thing I can think of is that each time he gets this error, earlier the computer had attempted to download some .NET update. Windows update itself kept freezing as well, as would system restore (sat on 53% done for 2 hours on one attempt).

After much pulling out of hair, I chose to have him do a fresh vista install and just start over, since the comp was only a few days old anyway. Reinstalling vista itself went flawlessly. But now there are no drivers. B/f has a "drivers and utilities" cd but doesnt know how to use it. I am 2000 miles away and have to do all tech support via phone, so I can't play with it to figure it out. I have a vague memory of using the same type of cd on an xp machine and having to manually go through a list and install every driver that had a check mark next to it.

When b/f inserted the cd for the first time, he said it started downloading drivers automatically. Later he said it had not. He then clicked something on the cd (no idea what) that he said was for sure downloading the drivers, but again it did not. I am very confused as to what is going on now and how he is supposed to use the cd to regain the lost drivers. Any advice would be very helpful. I had hoped he would be able to get internet access and maybe instal the drivers that way, but the internet will no longer work on the computer (probably because no drivers!)