The words LONG BARGEPOLE and DO NOT TOUCH come to mind!!!
Steer well clear of such things, please - they are what got you into this position in the first place.
Yes, a repair install is possibly the best way forward. There is an excellent tutorial on doing it in these forums -
Repair Install
Remember - ask questions *before* starting the job, as it may be too late otherwise.
Duly noted - and truthfully i should know better - but whats done is done i suppose..
Anyhow, some good news (finally). In terms of the updates, i have successfully installed 6/7 updates that have been plaguuuuu-ing me, most notably the 1 "Important" update. I ended up just running msconfig, clean-booting, and installing with nothing running. My guess is it had something to do with an AVG process that continued to run despite turning it off via the AVG control panel, but that is a guess - who the heck knows. Either way, its done....... and i suppose i will need to manually run WinUpdate in the future under the same parameters.
*NOTE - the only one that still fails to update is some random IE9 update that i could really care less about as i dont use IE.
I did read that article on Repair Install, and have it bookmarked already - but thanks for sending it my way. I may go ahead and do that (another day... im at wits end with computer repair for the time being) as my system seems to be running just fine atm.
I really want to thank you again for ALL your help and insight, and will go ahead and close this thread out now. Cheers!
Well done - and good luck.
Clean boot success means that something that's loading at startup is causing the problem - but it could be a nightmare trying to work out what.
I honestly doubt that it's AVG, or we'd have seen more problems - although it could be a comination problem involving AVG and something else.
What security software do you have installed (running or not)? (which version of AVG, as well)
Well upon installing AVG, i was sure to completely wipe off any other security software that came preloaded/was used in the past, so unless it was a conflict of Windows Firewall and AVG both being active, dont think thats was the prob (but you would know better than i).
I have AVG on auto-update, and it is currently @ v10.0.1424.
Is this the paid version of AVG or the free one?
What other AV has ever been installed on this machine since the last format??
I use the paid version of AVG.
Im pretty sure my rig came with Norton pre-installed (HP machine), but its been a while so cant say for sure. I do remember uninstalling whatever it was upon purchasing/installing AVG approx. 3 yrs ago.
The dregs of Norton and McAfee products can come back to haunt you - and are like poltergeists in the way they act!.
I suggest uninstalling AVG temporarily, and then running the Norton Removal Tool - you can then reinstall AVG
https://www-secure.symantec.com/nort...=1&pvid=f-home
(It doesn't really matter which profuct you had, as they all use the same removal program)
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