Specific Windows 7 Programs Unresponsive At Startup

I've had this windows 7 laptop for less than a year now, with no problems at all. I7 processor, good speed/graphics etc. Recently however (about a week ago) I turned it on and although the internet works, very specific (and all seemingly windows related) problems are reoccurring and making the laptop unusable. The first thing i notice when I start it up (I'll write it all because I can't seem to google the right solution for this) is that i get a black screen after entering login details for about 2 mins (used to be very quick). Then it loads and i notice the wifi icon doesn't show connected or anything it just has the loading circle over it and it stays like this (even now as I'm clearly on the internet typing this).

No gadgets launch but eventually i get my desktop. This is were it starts getting annoying because, if I open windows update the window opens blank and just freezes, not the whole computer just the update window, same for msconfig, system restore and other windows programs such as windows media player. I can view installed updates (and I'm thinking removing one of these might be the solution as it was around the time I updated windows that this started happening) which is strange as it seems some sections aren't working at all but some are.

To top it off I turned it on about 5 days ago and had the "this is not a genuine windows product" in the bottom right of my background and thought "that's annoying I'll have to fix it tommorow". So i turn my laptop on the next day, ready to fix it having done nothing, and everything is running perfect, i can see my gadgets, I can open WMP and i can look for updates. Restart my computer later that evening and i'm back to the point of nothing working and still there today. I've done a full system virus scan, a boot scan, a defrag and everything.