Well, it seems to be fixed.

If anyone is having the same problem; I downloaded a program called "One Care Cleanup" which completely removed Windows Live onecare from my system. For whatever reason, when I tried to run it from the link, it didn't work but when I downloaded it to my desktop and ran it, it worked fine. Sorry, I don't have a link for the program but if you google it I'm sure you'll find it.

Now all, for the moment at least, appears to be working fine!