Anyone have problems with "Steam" client in Windows 7 ?

Got a copy of Call Of Duty, World @ War 2
Steam version

I have two machines where it loads up fine
one Win7 x32 and one Win7 x64

But another Win7 x32 machine just won't run it, took hours to get it to install(ended up doing it in safe mode to bypass and services that may be conflicting and loading COD WaW2

now when I start the Steam client it loads and logs in fine until it starts to download the COD updates. that's when it crashes the whole system

Machine is an
Acer X5810
Intel dual core E7500
2GB ram
ATI Radeon HD4350 512MB video card

well within the specs for the game etc

Tried all the recommended fixes in as many forums I could find
nothing seems to work
still crashes when downloading game updates
so can't even get to try and launch the game