I just need to rant on all the little things that make up my overall frustrations right now with my N800. It sucks because I really enjoy the N800, it's just overwhelming for me right now because of the issues I have with mine in particular. Here are my 4 problems...

1. I think my main problem is that I don't know enough about Linux. I use the Search, find what look like solutions, but don't know what I'm looking at sometimes because of my lack of knowledge. If I had a better grasp of understanding the system I may not have these troubles I have. Or at least I might be able to figure things out quicker. I'm reading up playing catch up, but that doesn't help me in the now very much.

2. My File Manager is acting faulty and crashes when I try to navigate my MMC through File Manager or when I open a file in a program. Updating OS2007 fixed it once, but now it's crashing again and what's weird now is, if I open a program that auto-loads files, like the pdf reader (auto-loads all pdfs found on MMC) or ukmp (auto-loads media files found on MMC) it will successfully read files off the SDHC card without crashing or erroring out. If I try to navigate to those same files in File Manager... crash.

I tried some of the fixes I searched on here and even re-flashed my system and re-installed everything only to realize it was still acting the same. Which makes me think next time I re-flash, I shouldn't restore my settings and just completely start over. Maybe something funky is carrying over in the settings/ repositories when I restore the back-up.

3. Since Nokia hasn't made a setup wizard that works with Vista (which is all I have at home) I can't re-flash my computer at home. I have to wait until I get free time at work to do that (which isn't always possible)and then I have to wait until I get home to re-install everything because my work doesn't have a wi-fi network (@#!*%) and I have a T-Mobile Blackberry 8100 which as we all know can't tether to N800 (double @#!*%). Inefficiencies!

3. Finally, I'm having issues with the GPG invalid key error for http://catalogue.tableteer.nokia.com bora which is really frustrating because they haven't updated the repository, but you can't disable it in the Catalog window. So it errors and is one of the probems (at least what I'm guessing) why I can't install some applications like the new video camera and Boingo. I tried a couple apt-update fixes I found through Google, but none are directly on the N800 and when I try them they either don't work or it looks like it works, but doesn't update anything.

Ahhhh... that all said, I'm sure I look like the new whiny complacent guy, but these are issues I've been trying to work out the past month or so by myself, searching on here and Google and reading articles and articles of possible supposed fixes and I guess I hit my breaking point. I just want my N800 the way it used to be back! My hope is that OS2008 will come out very soon and wipe all my pain away.

The latest Flasher works with Vista fine (as far as I know, anyway). Your better option is to burn yourself an Ubuntu LiveCD.

The GPG errors shouldn't affect the repository refresh.

Poor guy is already having enough trouble, no need to try to learn yet another OS.

The Flasher works fine under Vista, and in fact it is shown as supporting Vista here:
http://europe.nokia.com/A4305010
and I have used it with Vista without any trouble.

If you are going to flash and start over from scratch (no restore) then you might as well use the OS2008beta firmware... unless there are particular apps you rely on that aren't available for OS2008 yet. It really works very well.

The file manager issues aren't normal. I haven't had any such errors, through several versions of OS2007. Your best option may indeed to avoid the restore after reflashing, although I can't offhand think of what in the restore could cause such a problem.

As GeneralAntilles said already, the GPG errors shouldn't affect the refresh. It's more of just noise in the application manager log and can be ignored, particularly for the catalogue repo (there are other reasons to trust that one besides GPG keys).

As the main problem sounds to be the file manager issues there's good hope you should be fine after a fresh reflash.

As far as the Linux knowledge issue goes, why not devote a few hours with a live CD to learning more?

Talking about file manager crashing... you might try to run diskcheck on the memory cards to see if there are any file system errors causing your issues. Just hook up the N800 to a PC with USB cable and you can see the cards as removable device on your Vista computer. Once you open the properties of the disk you should be able to see Tools and then disk check. (But Vista might be different... I'm mostly familiar with XP...)

I agree, the file manager crashing is not normal. I have never seen it crash ... ever. If I were to guess, it might be a faulty/unsupported memory card. I would try a new one (or take all of them out and just use the one that came with the tablet for a little while) and see if the problem persists. I have a Sandisk 2GB SD that works well. It is not SDHC. Maybe try just a regular SD card.

The file system on the memory card is just a Windows FAT32 so there is nothing particularly Linuxy about that.

But like another poster said, give the new OS2008 a try. If you don't want to try the beta, the real version should be out before Christmas if you can hang in there. I've found it to be a quantum leap in performance and stability. But you still have an underlying problem that needs to be resolved.

Thanks for all the support with suggestions and comments guys! It's much appreciated. Here's an update... interesting findings.

1. I went to re-install the Nokia setup wizard on my Vista system at home after Technut's comment about it working in Vista before I went to work. I uninstalled and reinstalled the Wizard tried it and BAMM same thing the wizard doesn't recognize that the N800 is connected. So yea, I have no idea what's up with that... ?

2. I'm at work now, and I just re-flashed my OS (no, I didn't move to OS2008 yet, I'm a little skiddish about trying it and decided I'd like to wait for final release) on my WinXP computer (which detected the N800 right away and installed fine, again, don't know what's up with my Vista issue...). I didn't load any backup and now my SDHC card is working fine!!! I'm thinking something must have been weird in my settings or maybe I downloaded a bad repository, but now File Manager works perfectly and so does my SDHC card. I think I'll be more careful about repositories that I add because I'm pretty sure that was the cause of my issues. I don't think it would be settings or anything else from the backup file.

As for getting a Live CD of Ubuntu, I've definitely played with the idea. I even have downloaded a distribution in the past, but haven't jumped in. I'm skeptical about adding another hobby to my list. I'm a Flash Developer, so I'm constantly learning actionscript and programming techniques for work and now with AS3 it's more to learn. I also do music with friends, and art, drawing mostly and I try to keep a normal social life with friends and my girlfriend. So my schedule is too full to roll up my sleeves and jump into the world of Linux. Soon hopefully. I'll be sure to update on any more findings.

can't you download the repository key with 'wget' and then use apt-key to load it?