Windows 7: Windows update service not running and windows defender

hello i have a problem on a laptop i have. I formated it using a windows 7 premiem install cd. i was about to do some updates and for some reason it says that the service is running. I went to go check into the services and it was running so a stop and re-enable it nothing. its the same thing with windows defender. I did a disk check but still nothing. I did a system restore to and nothing

So both services are running but it says its not running.

Is your copy of Windows registerd?.

Take a snap shot of your windows update logs and post it here.

%windir%\Windowsupdate.log

Your specs show your using a 1TB hdd, Take a read of this Article, Apply the hotfix suggested by Microsoft.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982018

Goto services and look at status of "windows update". Startup type=automatic? Is it started? If not start it manually there. What happens?

I made another system restore because i saw a critical update that was install(by windows) and now it seems everything seems to run. it checked for updated and windows defender. Even tought i disabled automatic check for windows. odd

my question is how do you guys know all this stuff?

You mean why we know how to solve a lot of problems? Google, technet, sevenforums and a lot of experience with troubleshooting. You are almost never the only one with a specific problem. Solution can be found on internet

Ahmen, Research and experience is key.