I have a handful of Win7 Pro x64 machines with the same problem. Something is causing Windows to malfunction in different ways but it seems to be settings or parameters set up rather than corruption.
symptoms include: services refusing to stop, msiexec hangs when trying to uninstall programs, windows updates hangs when asked to do just about anything, (windowsupdatediag.cab has no affect)
When attemping to run sfc /scannow
from within the running Windows, I receive the error Windows Resource Protection could not start the repair service.
(I also tried to start the trustedinstaller service but it said it was already running.)
However, when I run sfc /scannow /offbootdir=x:\ /offwindir=x:\windows
from a Windows RE cd it tells me that there are no integrity violations.
I have also run chkdsk /f /r x:
and received no reports of errors.
Could there be another windows program or service running that is tying up sfc? I have uninstalled and removed all non-microsoft software
sfc /scannow
from within WinRE, you are attempting to repair the WinRE not your Windows installation.sfc /scannow /offbootdir=e:\ /offwindir=e:\windows
so it targets the OS drive