eagl's Journal: Windows update killed my computer

The latest set of windows updates killed my computer. After the mandatory reboot, the computer locked up hard. It locks before the windows boot splash screen even shows, even when I boot using the various "F8" options. I used a ubuntu live cd to make sure it wasn't a hardware problem, and after mounting the windows partition I saw that trying the windows "logged" boot option wasn't even getting far enough to create the log file.

According to the windowsupdate.log file, the following updates were successfully installed:
KB929338
KB929399
KB890830
Root Certificates

The first one supposedly fixes a race condition and it replaces the nt kernel file, so it's possible it's not compatible with my hardware. Here is what I am running, and it was very stable until this update:

winXP home (fully patched and updated)
Athlon 64 X2 4400
2 gig ram
NForce3 based motherboard
AGP Nvidia 6800GT
Audigy 2 ZS soundcard
Onboard nvidia network interface