Bypassing Rurn Windows Features On And Off

My "turn windows features on and off" box is blank. this is a known error with many 'solutions' that have not worked in my case. I've reinstalled Windows 7 prof. x64 twice (for a total of 3 installs). somewhere along the line of installing my standard programs 9all of which work, no issues, ect.) my "turn windows features on and off" box will go blank. I tried figuring out what program triggered this behavior by reinstalling and restarting after every program installed and checking the box. it was a different program that triggered the event from reinstall 1 to reinstall 2. so, that's telling me it's not a specific program that's triggering it. anyway, I don't have 2 hours to reinstall windows and my programs every night, so I'd like to know if there is a workaround (ie registry entries) that I can edit to enable features and programs. from my understanding of how "turn windows features on and off" works, it must only be changing a registry entry or editing a config file that tells the OS not to load those features, as in the documentation, it states that the programs and features are not uninstalled, they're just disabled.