No access to Windows System Protection

Thanks for the suggestions.

Eirman: Checked registry. OK. Also checked the policies - ok.

nobus: Checked hard drive and ram. Seems ok. Also made a disk image (using Acronis), vut new disk had same problem.
Bios battery: 3.3V.

Also tried to run as Administrator, but same problem.
There is also an error message popping up when the System Protection is started. It reads something like (translated from Norwegian):

An unexpected error occured on the properties page:
System restore discovered an error. Try to run System Restore again (0x81000203)
Close properties and try again

Checked this error code and found a suggestion to check the Volume Shadow Copy service. Wasn't running, but error still after it was set to Automatic and Running.
There was also another suggestion to check a service called System Restore. Can't find this on the Win7 PC.

Any more ideas??

dir you run sfc. scannow yet?  from elevated command prompt

Did now. - command prompt as Administrator
                   sfc /scannow

Nothing found.

then a repair install or system restore are the options left imo
try a system restore to a date it was ok first
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

Thanks again.

Two problems doing this.....
1. Due to the System Protection problem that I'm trrying to solve, the only restore points are very old (more than 2 years).
2. Doing a repair is risky, because it may reset settings that is needed by installed software.

Feel like telling the customer to live with the slow PC or buy a new one...  Will probably cost less than pay me for working a lot on the old one....

if you don't want either one - you can speed up the pc by installing an SSD

nobus - Thanks for your help!!

Found what to do after looking more closely at task manager. Found that AVG Internet protection and AVG Optimizer used a lot of processor time and a lot of disk IO.
Customer agreed to remove Internet protection and replace it with Security Essentials. This made the PC a lot faster.
I then decided to also remove the AVG Optimizer. Got even more speed - and the System Protection started working normally again.
Don't understand why the optimizer should have any influence on system protection, but it obviously had....

Thanks again for your time and help!

Thanks again for all feedback !!!

well imo  there are no benifits fram any "optimiser" or "pc speed up" tools -  they even tend to make things worse

Agree
:-)