So the other day I was on my lappy when suddenly I get this very stange error stating that windows will shutdown in exactly one minute. For a second I didn't believe it, thinking it was popup. Then my laptop restarted.

Back from the restart I find I cannot run Firefox or Chrome from the quick launch area. Then I realise I cannot run them at all (but IE works just fine...). So I uninstall and attempt to reinstall chrome. The installer downloaded but failed to run (double click and nothing) which led me to download the whole thing off filehippo and to my amazement even that wouldn't install. The chrome_installer.exe and setup.exe run but when setup.exe gets to around 80,232k it just disappears.

Of course in between this I have done scans etc. Found a trojan on first scan, which was removed but still the problem persists. Also did some cleaning up with CCleaner but with no success.

Just installed firefox and I get the same error as the one when the problem started:

   

I get that error even when I go to that location and double click firefox.exe

WTH?!

Any ideas?