Recently my HTC (Wildfire S) phone has been giving an error message when ever I try and use the google play store.
The application Google Pay Store (process com.android.vending) has stopped working unexpectedly.
Online searching has suggested clearing the cache and data, done and no joy. Uninstalling all updates, done and no joy.

Anything else I should try before resorting to the factory reset?

Have you tried switching it off & on again?

Check your firmware is up to date. Think the Wildfire S is still running Gingerbread 2.3 but if that’s not been updated it may be causing issues with the latest version of Playstore.

Go to settings / about phone

Apologies if you have already tried this

Gingerbread.. not even that, Froyu. I have tried the update setting, but it just tells me thare none to install.

i used to get that with a desire, but uninstalling updates, which turned it back to ‘market’ rather than ‘play’ did the trick.

looks like you tried that tho :-/

unistall some more apps to give more space?