Vista Ultimate Problem

[sjm1027]

I was asked to look at a system that has Vista loaded, my brother tells me he was shutting down and a message came up saying vista will update some software and then shut down. So anyway now it's my problem to fix but here is what happened.
I booted the system and vista asked me to enter the product ID so I loaded in the vista number and it booted ok. I then wanted to do a system restore to a previous date but a lot of the menus are missing things, nothing in system tools, acessories and so on. I am getting messages saying c:/programs/what ever corrupt... I open up a program quickbooks and windows is trying to load an update... just gets hung up... Yet I can open up some programs... Email and web browser works... Any suggestions?

Thanks
Steve

[shadowpr]

First thing I would do is try to boot in safe mode, then turn off automatic updates.

See if things look better.

From there, I would probably end up doing a repair install to fix anything that was messed up when booting into normal mode if it wasn't already good.

Might also want to run virus and anti-spyware scans in safe mode.

Could even consider running a hard drive diagnostic from the hard drive manufacturers website.