Strange problems across the board.

I'm having a series of troublesome problems. I checked the forum, but what little info I could find didn't encompass the scope of my problems or had a hand tailored solution. But first here's my TSG Info.

Tech Support Guy System Info Utility version 1.0.0.2
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, Service Pack 1, 64 bit
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz, Intel64 Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7
Processor Count: 8
RAM: 8173 Mb
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series, 1024 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 939342 MB, Free - 269635 MB; K: Total - 953867 MB, Free - 287815 MB; X: Total - 1907726 MB, Free - 564796 MB;
Motherboard: ASUSTeK Computer INC., CG8350
Antivirus: None
(note this is a quad core with 8 threads, not 8 cores)
(also I have spybot2 it's the only antivir I've been able to install in lieu of mse)

Problem #1) I can't get mse to install. I was forced to uninstall it after problems trying to update it.
Problem #2) I can't get windows to update now either. Possibly the same or related problem.
Problem #3) I'm now having problems getting anything to install. (I'm getting a directory creation failure most of the time)

That pretty well covers it I think. I'm sorry I realize it's an enormously broad category.