Vista - Unable to open certain items in Control Panel + Update / Sidebar Issues

Hi All,

My apologies if similar threads have been posted already, but having trawled the internet, I'm stuggling to find an answer to the problem I have my Dad's PC.

My Dad has bought a PC from Mesh computers in the UK with Vista Home Premium (32Bit I believe) pre-installed and with his account set up as an admin. I went around to set it all up for him, get him on broadband etc and that's where the problems started...

Without connecting to the internet, I attempted to install Norton Internet Security 2008 (Vista approved edition) which got half way through installation before erroring about "failing to initialize". The install had half worked (the firewall was up a running) so I connected myself to the internet (using the Windows firewall as well) to see what the problem was.

From that point, it all started going downhill. I couldn't install NIS 2008 (even after a "LiveInstall" seemingly from the internet), but then Vista functionality stopped working. Certain items in the control panel would no longer open, such as "User Accounts" and "System", clicking on "Windows Update" from the START bar would flash up a window for a split second before closing and clicking to update "Windows Defender" gave an error message about not being able to update at all.

Around the same time, the pre-installed sidebar gadgets (a clock and some pictures) magically removed themselves from the sidebar and I can no longer add items to the sidebar at all, it is completely blank.

I've uninstalled NIS 2008 from the PC in full (using their uninstaller and registry uninstaller also) but this hasn't fixed any of the problems. The internet works fine, but there's now no way to run windows update, defender update or open certain items in control panel.

I've checked that the software licensing program is running through task manager (heard that's an issue) and all looks okay, but the problems still persist. Unfortunately time stopped me from looking into the "repair/reinstall Vista" option that some forums were suggesting.

Any help on this would be appreciated as I'm figuring that a) the NIS install disabled something in Vista which I cannot reverse or b) Vista had this problem before the install which is why the install failed in the first place. My dad's account is an admin (his UAC works and asks permission and works fine), so I'm not sure what's wrong.

I'm new to Vista as an OS but very familiar with PCs and XP OS etc, so please fire over any suggestions you may have in a user-friendly manner as I'll have to relay this information to my dad to try out!

Cheers

Tim

I have the same problem with my sister's laptop. It's an MSI VR220 with built in Windows Vista® Home Premium installed.

there was pre-installed the Norton Internet Security 2008 and I uninstalled it (I allso run the Norton removal tool). Some days after I noticed that many items from the control panel do not open (the window apears blank for a sec, and it desappears). Some of these are: personalize menu, network & sharing center, Windows Update (Updates seems that are installed ok though..), Users accounds, System, Sideshow, Speech Recognition, Autoplay, power options.

I haven't found any real workaround,
please help!

I found at last the SOLUTION!!!!


here is the MSI fix:
MSI Europe – Computer, Laptop, Notebook, Desktop, Mainboard, Graphics and more

and here some workaround:
Unresponsive items in control panel (Windows Vista)