1
I am still running XP x64 SP2 as my main system. I journeyed to Microsoft Update this past Tuesday to check for anything new. There were, if I remember, @ 6 or 7 important updates. I applied them all. When I rebooted, nothing worked. No internet, no IE, no right click, no sound, the task bar no longer worked. There were so many things that didn't work that I felt sure the system was toast. I went to Add/Remove to start uninstalling the updates. No luck, uninstall didn't work. Being the investigative sort, I started looking for non-destructive alternatives or at least explinations. I went to Services and found the problem. All the services that were set to Automatic had not started after the reboot. I went about starting the services. Remember, I said Right Click did not work nor did Double Click so I could not see the Properties tab but could see the Start command. I tried it and got an error report window. I tried each Automatic to start it until one did. I wish I had noted which one fired off first. I returned to the top of the Services list and started over. With each pass, more services would start and now the system is back to normal but upon each reboot, I have to repeat the process.
I really have no idea which one or was it a combination of the Updates that is causeing the problem and find nothing on the web about the problem so maybe it is isolated to my system. I just thought I would pass this on to you guys for your considerations.
weird one man...i was having some weird stuff before the updates, but after, things seem to be running smoothly (fingers crossed). i hope we hear of the cause and the solution soon... 
