bit of digging and the ' update ' file that failed was related to an old NERO i had to install to make a KNOPPIX iso in to a disk.... forgot that older ( win 98 compatable ) programs dumped things in to task sheduler but it should not have had an issue with the wallet.

If you did not get the wallet to back up your transactions ( any since starting it ) finding any coins for the ' old ' wallet may be useless and there is no way ( that I know of with out the cost of sending ' to yourself ' ) to make one wallet out of 2.
The only way I know to restore is to close the wallet, move the backup file ( of the walllet.dat ) on top of ( replacing and re-naming if needed to ' wallet.dat ' ) in the previously mentioned folder ( for those that missed it &system&\&user&\application data\bitcoin )