System Restore-No Sound..

I've got a few problems but don't know if they are related. All sound on the computer is not working. It was fine one night and the next morning there was no sound. I thought if I did the system restore back a couple of days it might fix it, but there are no restore points to use. I tried creating one to see if it worked, but it says it can't create a restore point to restart the computer and try again. I did that but it made no difference. We have also been unable to access our "add or remove programs". The "box" comes up but the programs never show, it just hangs...until I close it. I'm relaying all of these as I don't know if one is affecting the others. Any help would be appreciated..
thanks..