Event log service is unavailable?

Bite the bullet. System restore or System image. Go back prior to updates. Dont install the mal. tool.

If you are correct and the Mal. Tool Removal caused the problem, if you roll back to that point, your problem should be solved. If that does not work a roll back with the system image, will definaltly solve the problem. You will be rolling back to an image when everything worked. I feel that we are so very close to a solution. I will continue to look, I hate to lose.

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if it were me I would go with scannow, but you indicated that you prefer not to go that route. There is no proof that the problem was caused by the updates. Hold off for a day or two. If I think of anything else I will, get back to you. Just keep us posted to your actions and outcome. If everyone followed through with their final outcome, we would all benefit and learn.

Well, I went through all of the updates and uninstalled them one-by-one... made no difference. Since the Event viewer used to work fine (I last used it about a week ago), and now suddenly doesn't, I thought I'd try to "undo" any changes I made to the system recently, in the hope that one of those undone changes would fix it.

I guess its a corrupted file somewhere... if I had a bunch of time, I'd compare hashes of likely culprits, with someone who's system works fine, until the bad file is revealed... but who has that kind of free time? Not me!

Edit: Decided to run "sfc /VERIFYONLY". Maybe I can examine the list of "corrupted" files it produces, and only fix the non-patched ones.

How about this, back up your stuff, just in case. Then, with the Windows 7 DVD, do a repair. That should work, and you probably will not need the back up, but you will have it just in case.