Having come back to my desktop after 3 weeks, as you can imagine, there were a few patches to download. Most installed fine, with the exception of KB947562, which steadfastly refused to play nicely (7 goes at installing and no luck). If you search for this KB on the Microsoft Support Site, you'll see that it's an application compatibility update, which is a nice thing to have! If you're having similar issues with installing it there is an easy solution that gets it installed with a minimum of fuss:

Go to the stand alone installation site (don't worry, it's a Microsoft page).

Validate your copy of Vista.

Download the update (it's about 3.5mb).

Double click it and follow the prompts on screen.

Simple as that!

As a rule of thumb, you can usually find stand alone installers for any of the Windows updates by putting the KB number in the search box on the Microsoft support site - it can save a hell of a lot of hair tearing (trust me!)