My neighbor has a Lenovo laptop with Windows Vista Home Basic. She's a noob and just uses the laptop for internet purposes. She said she had to close down Windows improperly (sometime ago, maybe 6 months) because of system freeze. She realized there's something wrong with her Windows when she tried to open Windows update settings. I took a look at the system and determined the following errors:

• When I click on Windows Updates, a bare white window opens for a sec. and closes immediately.
• When I try to open Computer Properties, the same thing happens. (Windows+Break doesn't work either.)
• When I try to open Bluetooth settings, the same thing happens.

So Vista won't let me open any Windows settings, but installed programs work correctly (games, applications etc.).

She has no Windows Vista discs since the laptop came with preinstalled genuine Vista. She also has no recovery discs. I don't think there is a system restore point for the time the system was stable. Now what can we do to solve this big problem?