i am also curious as to what exactly do these tools do to the registry? i looked around niemiro's blog and found some useful information but not much detail, unless i missed something. ive fixed hundreds of infected computers in my day and many had issues with windows update not working but i have never had any issue such as this. i am very curious because, as i have been fixing computers for about 15 years or so, it isnt very often that i come across something new.
ps: glad i found this place because most of the fixes given to these issues (including microsoft's always worthless help forums) was to do a repair install, which i knew was a copout, "we don't know so just reinstall", bs answer.