Two days ago (July 5, 2009) I was working on my Windows Vista Ultimate laptop, and the Microsoft Updates notified me that updates were available.  I had some time to spare and I looked at the updates and there were a few very large Vista updates (over 200MB each) and an update for Microsoft Office 2007.

So I let it update and did other stuff.

The next day, (yesterday) after I rebooted the machine, I saw that I did not have any wireless connection to my local network and many other things on the system were just not right.

I looked in the event logs and found tons of VSS application errors.  I don't know what the Volume Shadow Copy Service is, but it was now not working.

I called Dell to see if they had an answer and they said to try and run the System Restore.  So I went to Start --> All Programs --> Accessories --> System Tools --> System Restore.  I ran it and it came up with the same error as in the event logs.

At this point the Dell technician said "Oh..." in the way that I knew what that meant. 

I have to reformat my computer and start over.

He and I tried some other things prior in order to see if we could come up with something that would prevent a complete system wipe.  But it was futile.

I thanked him for his time and hung up.  I turned on my network hard drive and started backing up all my files.  I tried to make sure I have all the license keys for all the software I've installed and I made a list of all the applications I've installed on the machine.

July 8, 2009

I have finished reformatting and installing the OS and drivers.  Now I'm am presently in the process of downloading and installing all (82) the latest Microsoft Updates for the system.  it's been downloading and installing for over an hour and it's installed 74 of the 82 updates at this very moment.

BOTTOM LINE

If you have a Windows Vista machine and you get this error, you'll most likely have to reformat your machine and reinstall your operating system.

I hope this has helped.  I know it's a complete pain and I can feel it.