Nevermind! I rebooted and the shield appeared with the ability to
choose express or custom, and then it listed all the updates with tick
boxes, just like you said. WGA did not appear in any of them.

This is great, thanks so much Mark. Now I can get updates without
waiting, and am still in control of the process. This lesson alone was
worth all the trouble of losing the userinit.exe file!

I did not choose to DL IE7 or SP3 yet, as I want to make sure SP3
isn't going to screw anything up. I've had enough troubleshooting for
the month, particularly with Xmas coming and relatives arriving next
Monday. Maybe I'll do that one next time.

If you were here I'd take you out for a drink or to Starbucks --
whatever be your poison. Hell, I'd smoke a cigar!

Thanks again!!

(Though I will still look to get the right key on here, this makes
life easier in the meantime, and makes me feel more secure
software-wise, to be updated, since my retail CD is like 3 yrs old...
so I knew I was missing a lot of fixes!)