Hey BillFill;
A new problem, apparently more serious.
When re-activating Windows 8 (see above), this being after a Refresh, I get this error:
Access Denied; A process has requested access to an object, but has not been granted those access rights." 0xC0000022
I checked in Services.msc to see if there are any other services (remembering, this is after a Refresh!) that are set to start Automatically but have not Started after a reboot:
NVidia Display Driver Service (so what)
Software Protection
...and that's all.
So there's something odd up with that Software Protection Component, and, as is noted in other places, I wonder if that's why the updates are not installing - because Windows 8 does not think that it's a genuine copy?
I note in this post [http://www.windows7newsinfo.com/smf/index.php?topic=5862.0;wap2] that this can result if a Group Policy is applied to the object. This is something that I know happened on this machine, as it ONCE had my business username on it, and I had to change security settings and all that jazz. However, as to whether this part of functionality / the registry was affected, I don't know...
Question is, how do I fix that? Is there a way to install just that service (above and beyond a Refresh)?
You might try running slmgr.vbs -upk to "uninstall" the product key and then re-install it using slmgr.vbs -ipk Key Obviously you'll have to activate windows again after this command. It's just something to try, I'm not sure it'll work.
See this for more details: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793438.aspx
I realize this is talking about Windows 7 and KMS/MAK Activation but it might help with your error.
Also see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947241