First automatic upgrades take too long to install

I am still trying to prepare my Vista for use after a difficult recovery. But my problems are apparently not finished. Vista began to install 76 upgrades and it is taking really too long... Hours... Still not finished...

During 19th upgrade, probably, I thought my computer is frozen and hardly shut it down. Thereafter it began again but a boot winload.exe error stopped the process strangely... I recovered booting via recovery dvd again... And it is still processing upgrades... I can't see desktop yet since yesterday when I began installing upgrades...

Is there anybody experiencing the same these days? This is ridiculous.

Have you tried booting into safe mode? If you can boot into safe mode try sfc. If you can't try a repair.
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/66978-system-files-sfc-command.html
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/101393-repair-vista-options-preferred-sequence.html

If he can get into Safe Mode and get to Windows Update, he can cancel the updates.

I've updated two new installations of Vista on one hard drive in the last couple of months. However, I did the updates in small groups, limiting the total size of the updates to about 10 Mb. It will still take a bit of time but at least you can boot the system between the groups of updates and do unrelated things.

When reinstalling updates after a wipe, I always find it best to d/l the stand alone SP updates and run them before hitting up the Windows Updater. Saves hours!

I agree. I have the SP discs. After I have installed the base Vista, I run SP1 and SP2 before doing the other updates.

Yes I like the full download for the service packs however I think that the OP has a bigger issue than that. Now that I think about it the main part of the service pack install does not allow the user to use the desktop and does take quite some time. Perhaps that is what is going on.

No, the SP are just a install then reboot, nothing to crazy.

I have a feeling an update went arye and now has issues.

Safe boot and sa restore to before the updates will be the best... IF safe mode can be accessed.

When you think about it, the base version had numerous updates. Most of those were contained in SP1 but, if the installer is installing those updates before installing SP1, that takes a lot of time. Then, there were updates to SP1, which are contained in SP2. However, it may be installing the updates before SP2 is installed. Of course, there were many updates after SP2. I don't know how smart the Windows installer is. Installing SP1 and SP2, each takes 45 minutes to an hour but installing them as as soon as you install the base Vista is a lot faster than doing the individual updates. I had a few problems with a few updates to SP2- I think they were .net framework updates. Of course, if he has Microsoft Office, there's also updates for it. There were many reboots necessary in the middle of all these installs and he didn't mention any.
Phew, makes your head spin.

Um, I installed both sp1 and in u nder 5 minutes each

I installed from the discs, which would take more time, but, I think I've also installed from the downloads after I got high speed internet. The installations never happened anywhere near that quickly. As you know, everybody's experience is different, primarily due to the system components and their configuration.