Vista - Flaky Window Experience Index Aero Test

From the installation OOBE to running the Aero test as part of the Windows
Experience Index test, I have needed to go through hoops to get the system to
not freeze, forcing a box reset to get things going again.

Searching here, I applied one of the suggestions, that being renaming the
DATASTORE folder to DATASTORE.old and the test ran and gave me a score and
the use of Aero.

Today I updated the NVidia driver and so needed to run the test again, one
would think. The Performance screen did not say my system had changed and
that I needed to run the test again as it should have said. I started the
test anyway and once again it froze the mouse and I needed to hit reset.

I fixed it by going into the security tab and checking all the boxes for
CREATOROWNER (after many failures trying other things). Even though the
system did not appear to have accepted the change and my checkmarks
disappeared after I told UAC to allow this, I ran the test and it went all
the way through, giving me my usual rating. Aero was staying on regardless,
unlike at install time where I needed a first successfull run of the test for
Aero to get turned on. But now I have a rating and all is well.

I had gone so far as to delete everything in the WINSAT folder except for
the 2 Windows Media tests (I heard they were hard to replace) and even took
ownership of one file I couldn't delete otherwise. When all was deleted I
ran sfc /scannow and it put back all the deleted stuff.

But the test still wouldn't run. And sfc /scannow always reports that it
found some corrupted files but couldn't replace all of them. Checking the
log file it mentions gives me no clue what's wrong, but then I probably just
don't understand what's in there.

I went through several Vista formats and installations attempting to get the
OOBE test to run but it never did the first run. It always needed to have me
hit the reset switch, create a second user, login to the user I want and
delete the second user, and it would run the desktop setup while skipping the
test because it thought it had been already run.

I had never experienced this problem before through the entire beta period
or the initial install of Vista Platinum Upgrade Retail on this same
hardware. Same DVD (I bought 2 for 2 computers that have similar hardware
but both had worked before), same everything but now this Aero test is flaky,
where it hadn't been before.

As far as I know all that has changed is time. It is not as if Vista
Windows Upgrades have somehow broken this since the initial OOBE test fails
as well as the tests after everything is setup and all updates applied also
fail.

Are permissions being setup wrong? Are my files corrupted by default from
the DVD? Anyone with an idea why this is happening?
--
Dennis
Asus A7V880/Epox 8KRAIPRO
AthonXP3200+/Sempron3300+
Crucial 2x512MB
ATI Radeon x850PRO/Gigabyte Nvidia 6600GT
Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro/Audigy 2 ZS Platinum