Huge issues with Windows Installer, Backup, Firewall and services

Hi, (This is my first post on these forums, tried Tom's Hardware countless times but have got no where)

Please be patient as this is a huge post

Around October last year I built my first PC (I'm 17) and was chuffed to finally fit the final piece of the puzzle, i.e. installing Windows. I opted for an upgrade package of my old copy, first installing 32bit Windows 7 Professional then immediately installing 64bit upgrade over the top (both 100% genuine). My system features two storage drives, one Sandisk 128GB SSD (OS Drive) and a 1TB Seagate data drive, both of which function great.

I went about installing the OS by obviously inserting the containing media, booting into it and everything as normal. I then proceeded to boot into my new install, which worked great, but thought of a problem. My PC has over 50GB of music and 10GB of photos to be copied onto it, I did not want these on my shiny new SSD as it seemed a waste of super-fast capacity. So I did some research and came across a guide detailing how it was possible to move the 'Users' directory from the OS drive to a secondary drive, a process that involved booting into Audit Mode and running a batch file (attached to this post as a txt file). I'd recommend opening in Notepad++ as indents aren't visible in default. User folder script.txt

This all went well and upon booting into Windows I noted that the process had gone fine and my Users folder was now on my secondary HDD, after which I begun copying over my music collection and family photos. From here on the first few weeks went brilliantly, I installed Steam and started downloading all of my favorite games. I also began installing programs that I deemed unfit for a speed boost onto the secondary HDD to conserve space on my precious SSD as I'd read about the more it's used the more it wears. This kind of use continued for a month or so, all fine and well.

However, after receiving a download of Far Cry 3 at Christmas, I started to notice pretty big problems. I ran the install, which I noticed took and unusual amount of time to kick in, but I assumed this was just due to the enormous size of the game. The installer hung on 0% for a good hour, then after this time, I looked at the screen and it suddenly started working, the permission request came up (after an hour) and the game installed.

This happened again when I went to install Java, I downloaded the installer and ran it, but it hung for a huge amount of time on 0%(around half an hour) before suddenly just whizzing through. Now, it seems that at least half of the programs I try to install hang on 0% for half an hour before asking my permission (yellow and blue Windows Shield) and flying through. I've also noticed that this mainly occurs with program installers of the file type ".msi", which leads me to believe there is a problem with Windows Installer somewhere deep in the PC.

I began looking around the internet for problems of this type and found several hints toward 'Services.msc', trawling through several services and restarting them all, no effect.

So, yesterday I was tinkering with overclocking my CPU up to 4.4GHz and realised I did not have a valid restore point if the system goes wrong. I went into system protection and attempted to create a restore point, only to be met with the following error message:

This would suggest a problem with the Volume Shadow Copy service I assume?

Yet another problem with my install is that I cannot enable Windows Firewall (which I don't mind, I use Online Armor anyway - but it's slightly annoying) I get this message:


I'm at my wits end, I've put hours of research into fixing this. I would attempt a repair install, however this would require all of my programs to be on the SSD and therefore is not possible without corrupting my secondary drive. Can anyone help?

Thanks in advance

Wow ... lots to read there. Let me see if I can help.

First, let it go about SSD drives. You do NOT have to babysit SSD drives. They will not wear out okay? Yes, in 10 years it may be no good, but who cares! Some poor OCD soul on the internet has affected your smart young mind.

Second, reinstall windows on to your SSD and make it your boot drive. When you get it working how you want, then you can keep your big data (that won't fit) on the other drive. Personally, I have two SSD drives, one for booting and one for data.

If you want to remap the User folder, do so because of wanting to separate your data, NOT to preserve drives. The reason I have data on another drive is so I can easily reinstall windows from an image (ghost file) I have of it.

I would unplug the HD to get a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 which steps are the same for retail. The steps compiled are what works best for Win7 in countless thousands of installs we've helped with here.

Afterwards if space gets tight move the active User folders to HD which can be accomplished with a simple Cut and Paste (not Copy and Paste). You can also have a secondary copy of the User folder on HD which is linked to the relevant Library - Include a Folder - Windows 7 Forums.