So check this out, for college I get the 172s-FX laptop from Gateway, which is a decent system packed with a mobile 8800 GTS that is awsome.  I decide to install Sins of a Solar Empire because I don't need the cd and well, every other game does.

I go about getting the disc, putting it in.  In the meanwhile, I'm moving files from my old pc to my laptop (just documents, no official file migration thing).  Everything's going fine until the file transfer tells me "Not enough memory."  I call BS cause my had drive has some 120 gb available.  Ergo, it must be referring to available ram (of which I have 3 gb).  I shrug my folders, click cancel, and carry on.  Low and behold SoaSE comes up with the same error message.  I click retry and it does something akin to "Haha, funny."

Meanwhile, it decides to stop installing.  I don't know if its done or not so I click the cd to try to install and it says I can only uninstall or play.  Cool, I decide to play, see everything is fine.  But, the game doesn't show up in the menu and such and I figure this could be a problem in the future so I'll make it a problem.  I go to the "Games" part of Vista, it isn't there.  Nor is it under the start menu.  I go to the Control Panel's uninstall manager and happy days; it isn't there either.

Confused little me then decides "A system restore will solve all my problems!"  And here I am.  I did the system restore, everything worked great.  I try to install and SoaSE tells me to sign here, here, and here.  It goes cool let me get this going for me and then says something along the lines of failure and line 312.  More specifically it makes me sad.

I hope this was entertaining enough to enlist some help...
Please?