Thanks for the reply to my original post!
So pointers in (1) and (2) are unchartered territories for me - meaning first time hearing and seeing for myself.
(1) As a matter of fact, I do see a report crash for each day in Reliability Monitor, dating back to June 9th. Screenshot from today's crash report.
(2) Actually yes, but I've got no idea where and what to look for in Event Viewer. Here's another screenshot.
(3) That is where our updates differ, so no comment on that. FYI, until a few days ago, I was still running Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 on my laptop, so I guess that's why. It has been uninstalled since I no longer need to have it running on this particular laptop.
(4) It is also my first time hearing of DISM and SFC, so no. But I will, tomorrow. Thanks for the link. I don't really know as to why I should habe any broken files on my laptop though.
(5) This sounds like the last step I would want to try out, because I am not willing to lose any files at all. At this moment, I'm not sure what exactly "repair-install" actually means and how it differ to a reinstalling windows - so I'm going to have to read the tutorial on tenforums first, although after taking a quick look, it seems tedious.
For now, lots of thanks and kind regards.