BleepingComputer.com: Cannot System Restore to correct PC malfunction

Vista Home Basic ACER laptop. Worked fine until I uninstalled AOL Spyware Protection, at which time I could not obtain Internet access, and all programs opened slowly only after a few minutes delay. For example, when I clicked Start, it would take a few minute before the menu popped up. Then when selecting Programs, accessories, and on to system restore, each of these steps had a delay of a at least 3 minutes before reacting.

My thought was to return the computer to when it was working fine.

So I attempted system restore, selected a date, and received the below message.

Error 0x800423F3 : The writer experienced a transient error. If the backup process is retried, the error may not reoccur.

After this attempt, no dates for system restore remained so I tried to manually create a restore point. After a couple of minutes of this step, I received the same error message.

Also when trying to use the Start feature, it will freeze and then I receive the message Windows Explorer is not responding and is trying to fix the problem, with no different result.

I tried system restore in safe mode, but it does not offer creating a manual restore option and restore point dates were not listed.

I tried the following steps without success:

1) Start the computer and press f8 on boot up and select 'Safe Mode without networking'.
2) In the start menu type 'cmd' (without quotes) and on the top search result right click the program and choose 'run as administrator'
3) Type "net stop winmgmt" without quotes and press enter to make certain the WindowsManagementInstrumentation (WMI) service is not running.
4) In the start menu click 'computer' on the right hand side. Go to the windows\system32\WBEM\ folder and rename the Repository folder to something else like OLDRepository (right click and choose 'Rename Folder'.
5) Reboot and restart as normal.
6) In the start menu type 'cmd' (without quotes) and at the top right click the program and choose 'run as administrator'
7) Type 'net stop winmgmt' (without quotes) and press enter to stop the wmi service.
8) Type 'winmgmt /resetRepository' (without quotes) and restart the system.

I also ran SFC /scannow via CMD.exe (as Administrator) and received the following message: "Windows Resource Protection could not start the repair service." and stopped. I checked the following services and found them to be enabled in Manual mode which I have read is correct: Windows Modules Installer and Windows Installer.

I also ran chkdsk and found no errors.

I would love to avoid a complete reformat. Your suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

By the way, I am losing hope that this is solvable. I posted this on geekstogo.com 8 days ago, during which time it has received over 140 "views" but no replies from its staff or visitors to the site.

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For all that matters it could be 140 other people with the same problem looking to see ifyou found a solution

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http://bertk.mvps.org/html/eerrormsgsv.html

It appears that a reformat might be your best (and only) option

The error message I believe you are referencing is not the same error message I get on attempting System Restore.

The error message I get is Error 0x800423F3 : The writer experienced a transient error. If the backup process is retried, the error may not reoccur.

The error message I believe you are referencing is:

Error: 0x800423F4 - Complete PC Backup fails with the following error code:

The writer experienced a non-transient error. If the backup process is retried, the error is likely to reoccur.

The error message you reference is "F4" not "F3". My message says "error may not reoccur" on a backup process." Yours message says on a backup retry, "the error is likely to reoccur."

The messages differ and I am not sure why it talks about backing up since I was not backing up nor have I tried to do so.

I saw this website you linked me to. It was the closest I could find on the Internet to find my error message.

Thanks for you reply.