Vista - Windows Update makes problem worse

1. My Vista Ultimate 64 had a problem 2 days ago with a driver for a USB drive.
That caused a BSOD.
2. I restarted to be prompted with the "an unauthorized change.." activation prompt.
I Activated
3. Upon reactivation it seemed to completely rebuild my user profile.
Then I could not see any programs in the start menu history areas either the programs or the files. Also I was unable to unlock the task bar or make any other changes that were user preferences.
4. I found registry fixes in the forums but could not do them since my registry did not appear to match.
5. Windows update wanted to fix my problem, so I ran it.
BSOD

Now my machine will not start in any mode.

It was SP1.
Can I run recovery from the original disk?
or Does anyone have any better suggestions?

Hi Mcmspark,

You can boot the Vista dvd and access System Restore to restore back to a poaint before you started having issues

There`s a guide for booting and restoring Vista here: System Restore - How to

What did you mean "an unauthorized change.." I havnt seen this within Vista before?

Steven

The machine was no longer letting me log in. It said I could call support but the activation screen was also not coming up, it claimed that this was an "invalid license".

My vista DVD said that it was not the correct version to recover this installation, or some other useless message, so I just reinstalled everything.

My troubles seem to start when I use the same Vista partition both from a VMWare Fusion boot and from a native boot. Since these would see different hardware, Vista wants to re activate each time I switch from VM to native or back. Because of this I was activating about once a week.

Is there a way to get Vista to activate only once in these cases?