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Can't set restore points; Can't install .NET 4 updates
SevenForums was recommended through my computer club (Phila Area Computer Society); I hope you can help me solve two, possibly inter-related problems in my Windows 7 system. These problems did not exists for the PC's first few years.
1 I am unable to create a restore point, or revert to a previous restore point, or configure restore settings. In the System Properties window, System Protection tab the System Restore, Configure, and Create buttons are always disabled (grayed out), and no drives are listed under "Available Drives", only the word Searching... . Consequently updates and other actions that normally create a restore points first either fail or never get going.
2 Win7 is unable to install a group of a dozen .NET 4 updates. It has tried and failed many times in recent months. Other Windows updates install without incident. And now I can't update or even open Visual Studio 2010 Pro: it fails with the message "Exception is thrown by the target of an invocation". But I frequently get pop-up notices from Visual Studio that an application file has experienced an unhandled exception. It's always the same 5 or 6 non-Windows files (I always chose not to trouble-shoot); but those applications don't always fail as a result.
Otherwise, my home-built (4 years ago) PC, with Win7 Pro and a variety of Microsoft and 3rd party apps work well. The PC has 4GB of RAM, a 3GHz Intel dual core CPU, and plenty of free space on C:\ and the three other hard drive partitions. Internet access via Verizon FiOS works very well (and very fast), protected by Norton Internet Security. My default browser is FireFox, but I also use IE9. Both work OK. Here's what I have tried so far, to no avail:
Ran MalwareBytes on C:\ and the other 3 active partitions; it found nothing.
Ran Sophos Virus Removal tool, which supposedly looks for rootkits; it says "your system is clean".
Ran System File Checker (from the command prompt): according to the log it found and fixed a number of corrupted files, mostly, it seemed, in Internet Explorer.
Ran the Windows Fixit Tool, and verified that the Volume Shadow Copy service had started.
Ran the System Readiness Tool for 32-bit Win7 (System Update Readiness Tool fixes Windows Update errors in Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008 ). Both CheckSUR logs, which were identical, reported no errors.
It sure seems like there's a faulty Registry entry and/or a corrupted file. Or could this be a permissions issue? Or a service that fails to start? I would appreciate any insight, advice, and words of wisdom.