Maybe try and uninstall the update that Microsoft did to you that caused this and see if that fixes, If no change maybe step back one recovery. Your not the Lone Ranger by the way...same crap happened to me as well. Friggin icon light show. Started on a spare harddrive and worked over to system drive. I have done all the virus checks and useless things with no luck. I heard if you drive a truck into the Microsoft building at 100mph, it might make you feel better, but still doesn't fix it.
Why does Microsoft make us Beta test their crap program writing. With respect to our systems that we did pay for, unlike the broken OS given out by them, perhaps doing a couple minutes of testing could help stop messing up our stuff.