Reinstalling CS3 Master Collection on Vista x64

Question

CS3 has worked fine for me up until I did some major Windows updates (mainly for MS Office 2007) on 4/29/09.  Premiere Pro gave me the "Sorry, a serious error has occurred that requires Premiere to be shut down. We will attempt to save your current project" error.  And After Effects wouldn't load (but would show up in Task Manager).
So I updated my graphics card and mobo.  Then I tried all the Adobe Licensing Troubleshooting tricks and other suggestions from all over the web.  Now I get the lovely "You cannot use this product at this time. you must repair the problem by uninstalling and then reinstalling this product or contacting your it administrator or adobe customer support for help."  Every program gives that error.  If I don't get the error (like in Bridge), Windows tells me the program crashed after closing it.
I also UNinstalled a whole bunch of programs (2 games, misc converters, other junk).  I figure I'm going to re-install the whole CS3 bundle OVER the Windows Updates and uninstalled programs.  First, though, I'm going to save important things like PS brushes and actions.
Does anyone have any suggestions before I go smashing my current installation?
Do you think I would be just fine installing directly from the installation disks instead of copying the disks to the hard drive like I did originally?
Will there be a problem with Licensing since I can't deactivate it now (the programs won't open)?
What do I need to do to COMPLETELY remove everything Adobe before installing anew?
Thanks a bunch.
-Michael
PS - my computer:
C2D E8400 o'cd @ 3.6GHz
8GB ram
1TB raid 0
2 512mb 9600GT's in SLi
Vista Ultimate 64-bit

Answer 1

Peter,
Thanks for the insight.  I'm going to take the risk and wipe CS3 off my hard drive.  I don't know if it's the right thing to do, but the latest Windows update was an update that was undoable (in other words, it told me after this update that I could not undo it).  So, in that sense - reinstalling CS3 might be the only thing to do.
Both Microsoft Office AND Adobe are important to my work - I have 8 email accounts coming and going in Outlook, use Excel for my billing, and Onenote for sensitive client information (password protected).  So I don't think I could forfeit Office.
I've done every Vista update as far as I can remember (the important ones - not the extras like games and language packs), and I've been just fine.  I believe the combination of uninstalling a bunch of programs AND major Vista updates caused my problem.  I'm also now having a problem with corrupted Tahoma fonts in Outlook menus and reminders (they look like bitmap fonts - very large and pixelated).
If this re-installation of CS3 doesn't work, then I may end up re-installing Vista altogether.  But with everything I have on my computer and all the customization of the interfaces between programs I've done, I think it would take about 10 years off of my life.  Not to mention the time wasted and angry clients waiting for their work to be done.
Thanks for the CS3Clean Script info.  I'll be running it at level 2 after I uninstall CS3.
I couldn't find any of my PS Actions or Brushes (which was all I really needed to backup), but they weren't amazing in any way.  So I'll just make them again as I go along.
I'll remember that tip about only installing important updates next time.
Thanks again Peter - I really appreciate it.
-Michael