I caught one of those fake anti-spyware bugs and successfully cleaned it with Malwarebites' Anti-Malware and verified clean with sfc/scannow, Housecall, and AVG. Unfortunately, Windows Security Center and Windows Update are not working and System Restore doesn't work because WSC is turned off. WSC gives a non-descriptive error and Update shows 80072EFE. Oddly, Chrome broke down at the same time but Firefox and IE both work (don't know if this is related). Running Windows 7 Home SP1 I tried the fixes posted elsewhere in these forums that begin with running services.msc, however when I do, Security Center doesn't show up in the list. Also tried creating a new administrative user, but the problem remained in the new user account. I am definitely stuck. I've tried these: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itprosecurity/thread/4a0ee244-1c4d-4af2-9099-f9ec198d5bfd

Hi, For your Windows security center issue, the malware damage too much, I suggest you perform an In-place upgrade to fix system files: How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 & Windows Server 2008 R2 Regarding Windows Update issue, if this issue persists after In-place upgrade, please refer the follow article: Windows Update error 80072efe or 80072f76 You may encounter temporary connection-related errors when you use Windows Update or Microsoft Update to install updates Hope it helps. Alex ZhaoPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Well, was hoping to avoid that, but I'll give it a shot. Thanks!