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 no longer access the Internet, 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 couple of minutes or more before reacting.

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

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 minutes passed in this step, I received the same error message.

Also when trying to use the Start feature, sometimes it will freeze and then I receive the message Windows Explorer is not responding and then the computer attempts to fix the problem, with no different result. otherwise, the start menu will pop up after several minutes of delay.

I tried perform a manual 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.