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RESPONDING to reports of endlessly rebooting PCs that flooded support newsgroups last week, Microsoft Corp. said on Tuesday it had pulled an update designed to prep Windows Vista for Service Pack 1.

Although the update -- actually a pair of prerequisite files that modify Vista's install components -- has been temporarily pulled from Windows Update, Microsoft has not yet produced a fix for users whose machines either won't boot or reboot constantly.

"Immediately after receiving reports of this error, we made the decision to temporarily suspend automatic distribution of the update to avoid further customer impact while we investigate possible CAUSES," said Nick White, a Vista program manager, in a post to the company's blog Tuesday afternoon.

White downplayed the problem. "So far, we've been able to determine that this problem only affects a small number of customers in unique circumstances. We are working to identify possible solutions and will make the update available again shortly after we address the issue."

According to White, Update 937287 was the cause of the problem. In a support document, Microsoft describes that update as one for Vista's installation software, "the COMPONENT that handles the installation and the removal of software updates, language packs, optional Windows features and service packs." Along with a companion update pushed to users starting Feb. 12 and another that was offered to machines running Vista ULTIMATE and Vista Business in January, the guilty update is required before Vista can be upgraded to Service Pack 1 (SP1).