IE 9 Failing to Update and Crashes on Startup

I've seen similar problems while googling around but nothing has worked for me yet.

Running Windows 7x64

Problem:
I have recently come across a program that failed to work and found that it relies on IE9 to be fully updated and functional. When trying to open IE9 for the first time in a while (b/c I use Chrome) I noticed that the browser would immediately close and a new Downloads window would appear with it asking if I wanted to save my hompage.htm. Also possibly related all windows help dialogues now fail to load and give me the error: "Unable to download / from windows. Unable to open this Internet site. The requested site is either unavailable or cannot be found. Please try again later."

Solutions Tried:
Tried fully updating windows and everything updated except IE9 saying there was an error (but not listing anything specific).

Ran full system scan with MS Forefront and it came up clean.

I've tried uninstalling IE9 via "Uninstall an Update" and the bar never moved and an message was given saying that the uninstall failed but didn't give a reason.

Some sites then said remove it from the "Turn Windows features on or off" menu but when I opened that dialogue it was completely blank. So that also failed.

Also tried going to Control Panel -> Internet Options to reset the settings to default but whenever I click on anything under the Internet Options area nothing opens and my computer doesn't even make the 'click' noise.

If you can think of anything else I could try that may work I would really appreciate the help, Thanks.

@Icit: For general internet purposes I use Chrome as my browser
@TrashZone: Some biology program I got from school that runs through an IE browser window, I'm hoping to resolve this wthout wiping everything but so far its looking grim..

Thanks for the idea but when I was in Safe Mode w/ Networking the Internet Optinons tab didn't even show up under the control panel so I wasn't able to reset.