Windows 7 will not run some Applications

[Serpher]

Last night everything was working fine. I was playing a game on Steam and some World of Warcraft. I'm usually using Ubuntu however I have to resort to W7 to game. So today I log onto Windows 7 and try to open up Steam. It lights up on the taskbar, then dims down again. I look at my processes and it's running but nothing is happening. Memory is being used for it as well. I kill the process and try to play WoW, which opens, but gives me nothing but a black screen for 30 seconds (white if I click), then kills itself leaving no process. What in the hell is wrong here? EDIT: When I run a game called StepMania, it gets stuck at 'Initializing Hardware'

EDIT: I'm currently on Ubuntu and managed to run StepMania in Ubuntu using WINE (An application that runs Windows programs, however doesn't emulate them)

 

[Jonathan_King]

Welcome!

What anti-virus are you using? Try installing Microsoft Security Essentials and immediately running a full scan. Just for good measure, download Malwarebytes free and scan.

Hope this helps,
~Jonathan

 

[Serpher]

Fixed the problem. Even though I set windows to prompt me before installing ANY updates, because I guess this update was so critical it installed it without doing so. This update made all my video hardware pretty much hardly work at all. I did a system restore and turned off updates all together, and I guess I'll turn them on in a month or so hoping another update will fix this. Also I don't use any anti-virus as it's so bulky. I just use NoScript on Firefox and it's managed to keep me virus free for over 3 years now. Windoze at it's finest.