I seem to have this problem with my computer also.
But I can't open Internet explorer. It shows up in the Task Manager, but doesn't show up on the screen.

Outlook sends and receives email and I can ping websites.

I checked and the Genuine Advantage Valadation tool is installed and the Software Distribution is installed.

I tried to just delete the folder 'Software Distibution', but after restart it was back.

I drilled down under the 'Download' folder and it has another folder with just a bunch of numbers and letters that has the install of wgatray.exe and the spuninst.exe that will uninstall it. But that doesn't work.

I can't go back to before the "SD" program is listed under system restore.

How do I get rid of this?