Win Update was never very good in Vista for me but its been a while since I've had to recover after every update.

Except it has updated twice in 2 days now and lost the Aero theme and gone back to solid taskbar, and window stuff after happily using Aero for 3 years. I've to recover twice to get it back but obviously it wants to update again.

Has this happened to anyone else recently?

Possibly a graphics card update?....

If you go into the windows update section (right click computer/properties then find windows update) it should tell you what updates are waiting to be applied and give a bit of info about it.

Neo_VRs guess sounds plausible if you installed all available updates, not only those directly related to Windows, but if you only installed the "recommended", these seldom (never?) includes graphic driver updates.

Could be that some update just turned aero off, you could try http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/my-vista-aero-glass-turned-itself-off-how-do-i-enable-it-again/

Or just rejoice - the aero look consumes a substantial part of your RAM, now you can use those MBs for more important stuff

Gfx is the likely cause but I skimmed the updates and nothing jumped out at me, there were 5 or 6. And I've tried to able it again with no luck (DWM is still auto and no option in normal personalization menu). I did Google first.

I don't spend my time fighting Windows, we've always had an amicable relationship. I let it make its changes and it works pretty well for me but I don't want it to do this, classic is hideous on the laptop.

Might be one of the few instances where the built-in system restore function is useful (only used it once, when a graphic driver update broke the suspend function, but it was swift and simple). The you'll need to run Win update again, of course, and carefully choose among the options. Worst-case scenario: install updates one at a time to find the culprit.

EDIT: didn't read your first post properly, sorry - see that you already done the restore. Installing updates one by one and see what happens might still be an alternative although not particularly tempting...

Edited 17 September, 201015 yr by swedishskoda

Had 2 updates that have fubar'd user profiles. Currently win Vista is giving me errors about event viewer, then hanging.

Download and install the latest graphics drivers for your card from nvidia or ati direct and not the manufacturer, you'll be suprised how many driver versions behind the manufacturers are,

Never had an issue with updates myself, here or at work.

Not had chance to re-jig the drivers yet. But I think the backlight is playing up too, the screen was only battery bright this morning not mains bright. Maybe time for a new one.