Programs won't run after 12/11 windows 8.1 update

I awoke this morning to windows 8.1 having automatically installed updates to windows even though I've set it to NOT do so! I hate how pushy MS is sometimes. Anyway, after the update the only programs that will run are Windows programs I.e everything in the control panel, paint, calculator, etc. No other apps that came with the laptop nor installed programs will open: Norton, Chrome, MS Office. CCleaner, Malwarebytes etc.

Double clicking a program icon and nothing happens. Opening from the .exe in explorer and nothing happens. Run as Administrator and nothing happens. Watching task manager I can see that the program briefly appears in the list then vanishes

If the internet is connected the system maxes out both the CPU and Disk but memory usage is only around 20%.

Windows firewall was turned off and will not turn back on.

Windows Update would not let me roll back the updates so I did a system restore back to 12/9. No joy. Booted in Safe Mode... no joy. I literally can do nothing else.

I bought this computer brand new two weeks ago and have been installing programs and transferring files from the old computer ever since. The last install and file transfer was 12/8 and nothing other than last nights windows update has been changed since then.

I don't have a lot of programs installed and the files transferred to this computer are all music and karaoke (this computer is used to DJ/KJ) 500GB worth! I know I probably will have to do a factory reset... but damn, just moving those files will take 6 hours!

If anyone has any genius ideas to try before I go that route I would love to hear them!

Thanks!

 

Can you look in Control Panel under Windows Update History and see what the undate was named? I have Win 8.1 set for automatic updates (except drivers) and the only updates I got for 12/10 were Windows Defender Definitions.
Did you updated any of your other programs yesterday? What about Norton did it update yesterday?

 

KB 3012199
KB 2975719
KB 2994290
KB 2538243
KB 890830
KB 3008925
KB 3008242
KB 3013126
KB 3008923
KB 2538242


KB 2575719 <-Failed on 12/9
KB 2920189 <-Failed on 12/5

Previous updated were pushed down 12/9 and 12/5
Out of the box on 12/2 Windows ran nearly 100 updates

And only Norton did a definition update ... no other programs updated.

I'm creating a bootable CD to try and run a virus scan... it's been years since I've had to do such a thing

 

Most of those you list updated on 12/09. I had no issues.

I am courious about KB2538242 and KB2538243 I don't see those two in my update history for this year.
Maybe someone here can give you more info about those.

Are you getting any error messages?

 

No, not a single error message. The programs just won't open and, other than a brief blip in processes, there is no indication they are even trying to open.

Virus scan from a bootable CD didn't find anything but cookies.

 

KB2538242 and KB2538243 are Security updates for Visual C++. .

See here for KB2920189. KB2575719 is an optional update roll-up (170 MB) and people have had problems with it so, you could probably hide it.

 

I've had a similar problem after downloading the 3012199 update.
Windows stops responding after having the machine running for a while. everything freezes, and I'll have to resort to physically press the "turn off" button on the machine.
Since the software doesn't respond.
It came out 11/12 (D/M/Y format)
The worst part is that it's one of the updates that can't be removed.

 

After further reading, Microsoft issued another, smaller version of KB2575719 and reclassified it as important.

I've had no issues with the latest batch of updates from patch Tuesday (12/9) but, I'm running a 32-bit system. It seems there have been more issues on 64-bit systems.