System comprises:

Toshiba Laptop Portege Z830
Windows 7 Pro 64bit (Version 6.1 Build 7601, Service Pack1)

Norton Antivirus.

In a nutshell I need to fix what seems to be a corrupt d2d1.dll to get my windows Live Mail working.

System was running fine until yesterday, when after booting up I found I can't run WindowsLiveMail due to a d2d1.dll error.    

I have search extensively online for solutions & tried to follow as best I can the proposed solutions to similar problems, but to no avail.

Sorry for the Looooooong description that follows, but I've tried to not leave any details out, since I don't know what might be the important clues.

The errors I've encountered and the steps I've taken are;

1) CORRUPTED d2d1.dll

When I try to run WindowsLiveMail I get the following error:

"wlmail.exe - Bad Image
C:Windowssystem32d2d1.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error.  Try installing the program again using the original installation media or contact your system administrator or the software vendor for support."

Other Windows Live Programs (ie Live Messenger, Live MovieMaker) and Yahoo-msgsr give the same error msg, with the exception of Windows Live PhotoGallery which gave the following Error Msg.

"Windows Live Photo Gallery encountered an error loading WLXPhotoLibraryMain.dll avd can't start Error Code: 0x800700c1"

Other MSOffice 2010 applications (ie MSExcel MSWord) seem to run ok, as do most other programs I've tried to run (mostly Engineering & CAD related).

Most Online advice for d2d1.dll error suggests opening Cmd.exe as Administrator & running "sfc /scannow" at the command prompt. However that hasn't worked as detailed next. . . 

2) SFC Will NOT RUN

When I try to run SFC with any of the switches (eg /scannow or /verifyonly etc) I get the following error msg.

"Windows Resource Protection could not start the repair service."

I have tried running SFC from f8 booted SafeMode and get the same lack of results.

When I select F8 Booted "Repair Your Computer" SFC gives the following msg. 

"Beginning System Scan. This process will take some time"

then

"There is a system repair pending which requires reboot to complete. Restart Windows and run SFC again"

no matter how many times I re-boot and rerun SFC I keep getting the same msg. 

So I next looked at trying to update windows . . . 

3) WINDOWS UPDATE IS CORRUPTED or NOT WORKING:

I have tried to update Windows from ControlPanel>System-and-Security>Windows-Updates ~ Check for Updates.

I got the following error msg.

"Windows could not search for new updates.
An error occurred while checking for updates for your computer.
Error(s) found: Code 80080005 Windows Update encountered an unknown error. get help with this error"

When I click on the "get help link" it takes me to a help page called "Windows Update Error 8024200d" which recommends to install "System Update Readiness tool" then Run Windows Update again. 

System Update Readiness tool was installed as per https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/947821 and completed until "finished" acknowledgement given.

When I try to run Windows Update again it goes into endless cycle of "Checking For Updates"

4) ChkDsk Seemed to do Something.

I right clicked on C drive in WindowsExplorer then Properties>Tools >Error-Checking>Check-now and selected both options (Automatically fix file system errors & Scan and recover bad sectors) which seemed to be a wizard for ChkDsk. It scheduled the check for next reboot & when I reboot it listed heaps of stuff it was fixing or deleting, which went on for about 5-10 minutes. However the list of files all flashed so fast I wasn't able to read any of them or work out what they might be.

I though I might be getting somewhere, so I have tried everything again from step 1 above through step 4. But still the same lack of results for 1, 2 and 3, while step 4 now just keeps giving clean results.

5) Additional Info:

I have run NortonAntiVirus a few times, the first of which found and deleted 2 or 3 low level Trojans/viruses/sneaky-cookies. But that's nothing out of the ordinary, as I receive lots of files via work and get a few virus etc each week which Norton usually handles as it did these.

I ran Norton's live update a few times and each time it downloaded some updates but each time it failed to install them, which is unusual. Though I suspect it might have something to do with Windows Update corruption detailed in 3 above.

I tried to Uninstall and then Re-install a program (Yahoo Msgr) to see if Un/Re-Install Programs was working which is was. Also I was hoping that YahooMsgr might have reinstalled a new copy of d2d1.dll  since it seems to be one of the users of this file. But it either didn't install a new or if it did, it didn't stop the d2d1.dll error msg from occurring.

I suspect the solution involves getting SFC to run, but I'm out of ideas how to do that.

Please Help.