mmh... i guess Vue can't do nothing against something like this happening   ...

I, too, get updates on Vista (don't know, which OS you are running), but i have it set, to inform me of new updates and only start updating if i answer yes. Otherwise the question window is hovering forever on the desktop, not harming my Vue renders.

If i have scenes, which will take very long (first i do a small and fast 320x200 final/broadcast/superior, whatever render quality i want in the final render and for a estimate calculation i recalculate the time for the final wanted resolution), i often render them in steps, a few hours here - an hour or more there - by using the render resume function of Vue.

The first time working with Vue i've learned my lessons, too, meaning a lot of times i forgot to save the very latest scenery design and settings and start a render. I've had crashes and things edited before were gone.
So, since then, my last step after changing something - one, a few or many changes, doesn't matter - i save the scene and before i hit render, i automatically check the save icon, if it's greyed out - only then i'm clear to give the render a go ...