+1

This is the most important step.  As long as you have the original wallet.dat that has the private keys associated with the bitcoin addresses you are using, you'll be ok.  If you lose this file and don't have your private keys written down or stored anywhere else, then you can kiss your coins good-bye.  Be VERY careful and don't mess with anything unless/until you are sure that you have a good copy of the correct wallet.dat stored in a safe place.

Very good advice.



Version 0.7? That's the most recent release.

If it is "stuck" it could be because it isn't connecting to peers.  Does the client show connections (status tray in bottom right)

The debug.log will show more of what the problem might be.

Yes, the wallet does seem broken.  I had this same exact problem.  Every time I installed and ran it, it got to a certain point in the block chain and then got stuck.

To get it to work, I had to download the blockchain manually from here: http://eu1.bitcoincharts.com/blockchain/