On starting up my laptop running Vista Home Basic tonight I was invited to install important Windows updates. I did so.

After a while the following message appeared:
''Configuring updates: Stage 3 of 3 - 0% Complete. Do not turn off your computer''

After about 1 minute the screen advises ''Shutting Down'' which it duly does only to restart to the ''Configuring updates'' message again ...and then on to ''Shutting Down'' again...and on and on ......ad infinitum.

Please help. I've tried pulling the plug and restarting in safe mode but it always comes back to ''Configuring updates.....'' How can I break out of this cycle? It's been going on for several hours now.

If you have the Windows Installation DVD, boot to it and try to run a system restore from this disk. Make sure the restore point is BEFORE the date you installed the updates. If all works well, disable automatic updating. The problem is caused by the update KB937287, a software update for the Windows Vista Update Feature. If you know how, custom install your updates and exclude this update. If you don't know how, I'll explain. Hope this helps you out!