Vista SP1 Woes

Say what you will about Vista but besides being an absolute resource hog and some file transfer issues it has performed OK. Having said that though I will add that any OS that needs 600+ megs just to load is needless bloat ware. But alas I digress. I have tried to install SP1 about 9 or 10 times. My first few attempts where on my own and searching the net for solutions. The last few have been with email help from Microsoft. After 4 more tries with solutions from them I am beginning to find it all just a little bit much. No service pack should give you this much grief. There is nothing special about my machine. Acer 5630 Core 2 Duo 1.66 2 gig ram 160 Nvidia Go 7300. The only thing unusual is perhaps that it dual boots Linux Mint. At this point I am waiting for a reply from Microsoft after sending some log files. My wife runs a Mac Book with Parallels and had no issues installing the SP. It must be embarrassing for Redmond to have to create a whole team to help us "common folks" install their patch. I have been working with "Gillian" he answers back every fews days with a few more "solutions" to help me have a safer more enjoyable computing experience. Can't wait to see what they come up with next.