Plethora of problems. Please help

Here's a sequence of events...

1. Windows Installed the lasted IE 9 Security Bug Fix - when restarting my computer windows wouldn't start back up. So it recommended to scan the disk for errors and repair. I did so. Then it showed a list of options and I chose to do a System Restore to about 2 hours before that.

2. Everything was good until I started to play my video game WoW. WoW started blinking. I had *just* updated my video driver for AMD. So then I decided to do a fresh reinstall. So I uninstalled everything then tried to reinstall AMD driver.

3. AMD Driver didn't install because it stalled when trying to install Microsoft C++ Redistributor 2012 x86. After doing some Googling I found the answer was to just install in manually. So I went to Microsoft's website and found the distributor and installed it. AMD Driver still stalled. I couldn't skip the part where it tries to install Micosoft C++...

4. Then Yahoo Messenger crashes as soon as I log in. Then when trying to view the Event Log Windows Explorer crashed. And now Google Chrome is crashing on me.

I'm not sure what is going on because one problem doesn't seem to be related to the next. Here is some info about my PC.

Windows Vista Home
Intel(R) Core(TM)2DUO CPU E4500 @ 2.20GHz (2 CPUs) 2.2GHz
Memory: 4Gigs
DirectX Version: DirectX11
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series

I'm running Avast virus scanner right now. I plan to do another Scan Disk when that's done.