I did do a restart first thing but the problem persisted. Then I started getting some 'blue screen' 'CRITICAL PROCESS DIED' and 'MEMORY MANAGMENT' errors on several reboots. Opened up my computer,...

Thanks! When I tried this I get this error...

I should add that the service was already stopped when I checked. Trying to restart it yielded the error below.

C:\Windows\system32>net start...

Hi Brink, thanks for the BAT file. Although it seemed to work, after I restarted, Windows update is continuously searching for updates but never finds anything. The 'checking for updates' dots just...