Windows 7: Updating Malfunction

I recently had to rebuild my PC because I was unable to login into it in normal mode. It is not rebuilt, but it seems when I run updates it either freezes during the process or something. Last night, there were 113 updates that I waited for about an hour and a half to complete. The next batch there was 91. I left my machine on all night so it could do the 91 updates. When I went to bed, it was at 48, and when I woke up it was at 48. Now, after restarting, all I'm getting is

"Preparing to configure Windows...
Do not turn off your computer."

It's been saying this now for at least 10 minutes. Is there something wrong here???
Very frustrating!

Do you install sp1 first?

It might help if you download and install updates in smaller batches. I've found that doing that reduces any errors and failed updates.

Installing SP1 as soon as you can will greatly reduce the number of updates as many of them are rolled up within SP1.

SP1 is downloading now and yes, I have found downloading them in small batches seems to go smoother.

Pleased to hear it. Do keep us posted as to how things go.