system restore/update

System restore has stopped working; action centre says backup in progress when there isn't one; windows update takes (so far) three hours today; and backup doesn't work at all.
On googling all the above I find a great many people with the same problem- all seeming to revolve around system restore. But I've found no solutions.

My question here- does any body actually know how to control system restore through the registry? The applet is greyed out on searching for drives, so no good to be done there.

This is driving me to distraction - even considering complete reinstall.

Anyone? Please?

As your system is already acting up I'm not sure if this is a good option to try but have you thought about disabling system restore, then re-enabling it again. The problem with that will be you will loose current restore points which in your case you might need.

Does the restore work in safe mode?

No, restore doesn't work in safe mode. As I said, the applet is greyed out, cycling on "searching for drives".So I can't use it to disable restore. Which is why I need a registry route...

Unfortuneately i havent got my win7 in front of me at the moment, but based on XP i would try to turn system restore off. This deletes all restore points from the computer.
however this may be risky. Type system restore inthe search in safe mode
secondly if you run windows live onecare safety scan it will create a restore point. This scan will take a couple of hours.

Thanks for the advice, chezzrob. Sadly, as I said, system restore won't open in safe mode.I can't turn it on or off.
What I'm trying to find is a way of forcing a reset of system restore through the registry - that seems to be the only way other than a complete reinstall of windows, which I'm loathe to do.

Ccleaner will allow you to at least look at your restore points and delete all but the last one.

I think you may not have any though. Are you sure your system is free of malware? Sorry, I have nothing to offer for a registry fix.