I'll list my symptoms...
- Running Windows 7 RTM 32-bit.
- I can't log in as a non-admin user, failure to connect to the System Event Notification Service
- If I log in as an admin user, I can't run anything as administrator (error: The system could not find the environment option that was entered), so I can't get into the Event Viewer, or run setup.exe off the Win7 disk, list the services, etc.
- If I run "sfc /scannow" everything reports normal.
- If I boot to "Repair my computer", the System Repair reports everything normal.
- If I boot to "Repair my computer", and go to the Command Prompt, "netsh winsock reset" reports "The system cannot find the file specified"
- If I boot to "Repair my computer", and go to the Command Prompt, I can't run setup.exe off the Win7 disk, because I'm in Safe Mode.
- I'm running out of ideas, short of installing the OS again. I'd prefer to Upgrade/Fix the installation I have, rather than installing a clean copy, but I can't do that without fixing point 3.
All the web pages I can find about this error describe solutions that involve running processes as administrator, but I can't do that (see point 3 above).