Well again I knew what you would be getting but in any case do the clean install and this will help things along a bit.
Four steps to reduce the pain of Windows 7 installations using cumulative updates - Tech Pro Research you need to use the links within this of course:)
It's not as bad as it used to be and worth it afterwards :) I did it the long way round and all the updates were done in a morning.
Well glad you got it sorted as yes it used to be a real pain, although using an ISO form their site is "fresher" insomuch it has a lot of the old early updates already done. But that link is worth keeping in mind if yu are fixing someone else's machine
All the updates took only a few hours, as I anticipated and as @hazel123 confirms, but reconfiguring Windows to my taste and reloading my applications will take several days. I am marking this thread as "solved", but only because there is no other way of announcing that more time should not be spent on it. The original puzzle is not solved, and whatever it is may afflict someone else or, indeed, may rise up to afflict me again. I'm grateful to the members here, especially ICIT2LOL and LaybackBear, who have taken time to worry about someone else's poorly-protected system.
Same thing happened to me recently - we all make mistakes and don't keep on top of thingsI never did find out what caused my issue either but put it down to just not maintaining things, cleaning up, too many programs and insufficient antivirus and just being ready for a clean install
Yes mate been there done that on more occasions than I care to think about and just so you know if you use a smallish C: drive never let it get almost full - you can lose the lot and that link I mention back in post #41 is a real plus as well as a fresh ISO I keep mine updated only because I have tons of download.
If the beast comes back you know where to come.
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