Whenever I try to do something like that, my code usually crashes at about the 98% mark.

Ain't that the truth!

20 days ago, it was about 38% of the way through when a DIMM failed. Trouble was, when the DIMM self-destructed, it apparently also took out some of the interface circuits on the motherboard.

That meant I was down to 1 socket and 2GB. I opted to replace the 2GB DIMM with a 4GB DIMM, despite that because my mobo only supports DDR2 ram, and 4GB DDR2 DIMMS are rare as rocking horse do-do, it cost twice as much as the same amount of (much faster) DDR3 memory. When the DIMM arrive I plugged it in and nada! Ziltch, ZIP, nary a peep. Run diagnostics on it and I've purchased a duff! So back it went.

Whilst running the diagnostics I also saw signs that maybe the other socket was getting flaky also. Stuck my remaining, working 2GB DIMM back in and ran a long soak test and sure enough, something was flaky and getting flakier.

Only thing left to do was get a new mobo! Upside is, I could get G41 DDR3-capable one & 8GB of ram for little more than the price of the 4GB DDR2.

The stuff arrived and I installed it. Power on and everything (hardware-wise) seems to work. (Except the cpu fan, transferred from the old mobo is screaming like a banshee!)

Needless to say, the existing install of Vista wouldn't boot -- even in safe mode -- cos it didn't have the required drivers. So no choice but to install a new copy. That works and everything boots up fine. But, I bought my copy of 64-bit Vista as an upgrade to the originally installed 32-bit Vista. It was cheaper. But as it was intended as an upgrade, doing a new install means my product key won't verify. In addition, Windows uses 3 bits of information to determine that you're not trying to install on multiple machines: the motherboard; the Ethernet card; and the hard disk. As internet cards are integrated on both mobos, I had changed two!

Now I was on 30 days notice of an impending "Your Windows is unauthorized!" event. So, having done several hours of yoga to relax myself; per-prepared a flask of strong coffee and dug out a pack of good cigars I was saving -- just in case -- I sat myself down in my comfy chair in preparedness of the forthcoming battle and rang: dah, dah, da, daah! Microsoft Technical Support! And ...

The menu system was easy to navigate; after the second selection, a phone began to ring; and after less than 10 seconds, was answered. By a real, polite, and helpful human being. He took a few salient details and within a couple minutes determined that despite Vista being out of service, they would deal with my issue without charges, and put me through to another, equally polite and helpful -- and more importantly knowledgeable, senior support engineer. And within 15 minutes, he had guided me through a series of steps which allowed me to successfully validate.

He then asked me if there was anything else he could help me with. That was too good an opportunity to pass up so I rattled off a list of things that I've always wanted to changed but couldn't work out how. And he went through the list one-by-one and fixed all but one. He promised to get back to me when he finds a solution to that one. (He contacted me twice since -- once by email, once by phone --to assure me that he is still working on it and is making progress).

Finally to the fan. The bios on the new motherboard has four step fan speed settings of 70/80/90/100%, the lowest of which on the rather overspec'd fan my machine came with, runs at 3300rpm. Which sounds like a small turbo-prop running up. I thought that I was going to have to purchase a quieter fan -- no way I could live with 3300rpm permanently -- or return the mobo. But then I found SpeedFan -- which has a messy interface; bad documentation; and is a pig to set up -- but when set up, actually works quite nicely.

So, finally, after 17 days of frustration and 3 days of pleasant surprises; I have my machine back working well, with twice as much (considerably faster) memory; most of my software reinstalled -- with the advantage that I'm only re-installing the stuff I actually found useful.

Whoa! Did I just type all that! Geez. I guess my relief is palpable :)

Looks like you've almost made it successfully to the end of a best-way-out-is-through ordeal. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you for that last 2%!