No Programs responding

Hi All

I just started up my Laptop (Sony Vaio 2.6GHz Core i5 | 4GB RAM | ATI Radeon | Windows 7 Home Premium) and none of the programs on my laptop are responding when I click on them to start them. Not even Windows Explorer opens. Nothing responds. I can open the windows start button, but that is about it. The PC is still under warranty, so it's quite new (4months). I also take great care of it, I do not load all sorts of crap on it. Only the essentials

It all started yesterday, when my PC became really slow and I had to restart it, where it literally took 10 minutes too shut down (NO windows updates being installed...). I restarted it, ran a check disc for bad sectors, and it found none. Only a few bad clusters. I also ran - sfc /scannow command in cmd.

However, when I open some of the programs(non windows system programs such as explorer and task manager), it gives me the following error: "The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion"

Any help?

Thanks

Have you tried starting in safe mode or ran a virus check ?

No for safe mode, running a virus scan now with ESET NOD32 Smart Sec 5. If I restart in safemode, and everything works fine, one assumes it is a virus then?

Can you get to system restore and choose a restore point before your problem started?

Yes, there is a restore point just before a critical windows update

Give it a try - you can always get the update again.

Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7 - Windows 7 Forums

Update and run Malwarebytes full scan in Safe Mode. Then run SFC -SCANNOW Command