Multiple Vista faults which are causing me headaches...

...mere moments short of tearing my hair out in frustration and throwing my Vaio notebook over the balcony to a very expensive yet satisfyingly spectacular funeral, I decided to turn to you fine people for help.

This is my first time posting to these forums so, first and foremost, Hi everyone!
I am running a stock-standard Sony Vaio VGN-TZ37GNB with Vista Business 32bit.
My first sign of trouble was a few weeks ago when the machine would not shutdown... I very rarely shut the machine down, I usually just put it to sleep when not in use, however on this occasion I noticed that it sat on the "shutting down" screen indefinitely until I held-in the power button to put it out of it's misery.

My plan last night was to update all my software and hopefully fix all the issues I have been having with the PC, however as I was working through the process' I ran into a few issues:
1. My antivirus signatures were 6-months old; eTrust had stopped downloading these automatically for some reason.
2. A system virus scan came back clean (with the 6-months old signatures however)
2. The Sony Vaio Update software would fail when initiated, with subsequent error messages.
3. The PC would hang and need to be rebooted when I tried to install the updated "Vaio Update" software.
4. I could not access the Task Manager no matter how many times I clicked on it.
5. Windows Update appeared to begin downloading the software updates, but it sat on "0%" indefinitely.
6. When shutting down the PC, I got an error saying that Windows Sidebar had stopped the shutting-down process.

I am currently trying to install Vista Service Pack 2 in Safe Mode as it failed to install after 4 attempts in normal windows mode (the software would just hang at various stages of the "Preparing Computer for Update" screen, and since I could not access Task Manager, a physical reboot would follow every time!)

I'm hoping that (at least some of) these symptoms sound familiar to you because I would really like to aviod taking the PC to a repairer. Any help would obviously be very much appreciated!

Julian.

Welcome to the Forums!

1) Get rid of that antivirus app. See if a dedicated uninstaller is available for it. If not kill it normally. Install Avira Free temporarily. Reboot.

2) Try a clean boot: How to perform a clean boot procedure to determine whether background programs are interfering with a game or a program that you currently use

3) Use the diag suite in my sig to find your drivers, and download them, but DON'T install yet. Also post a screenshot of your installed programs, search for snip in the search menu.

Thanks very much for your help!
When I got home from work, Vista Service Pack 2 had installed and the machine had managed to reboot itself without manually holding-in the power button. I then went ahead and uninstalled all redundant programs, including eTrust Antivirus.

As advised, I installed Avira Free and ran a scan... the scan detected a trojan which was then quarantined and deleted. After the subsequent reboot, I ran Windows Update and Vaio Update which both worked as advertised.

It appears as if the issues were resolved by removing the virus and/or installing Vista Service Pack 2 and it's subsequent updates, however I will still run through the rest of your suggestions when I get a spare few minutes to see if there are still any problems lurking.

You mentioned that I should only install Avira Free temporarily; currently what is my best option for anti-virus protection?

Thanks again!

Julian.

I suggest you use the brand new Microsoft Security Essentials ( First look: Microsoft Security Essentials impresses - Ars Technica ). It's free and works very well.