"Failed to connect to a Windows service"

[narly321]

I recently reformatted my laptop. After installing the recommended windows updates, I restarted my computer and a notification popped up in the system tray stating:

Failed to connect to a windows service. Windows could not connect to the System Event Notification Service service. This problem prevents limited users from logging on to the system. As an administrative user, you can review the System Event Log for details about why the service didn't respond.

Everything still seems to be working okay. I still have wireless access to the net and nothing major seems to be disrupted, yet I still get this notice each time that I start windows. I am not very computer savvy, so if you have any help to offer please break it down to layman's terms for me.

Here is some more info about my laptop that might help troubleshoot:
Inspiron 1420 Dell laptop
Windows Vista
Ad-aware installed
AVG free version of ant-virus

Everything seemed to be working fine before I installed the windows updates.

Thanks!

 

[LookinAround]

1) Click Start->Run, enter services.msc. Scroll to that system service and make sure its Status=Started

2) If its status= Started see here. Someone else running Vista and AVG with the same problem (due to AVG)

 

[DelJo63]

Sys Event Notification =>deps(COM+ Event System)=>deps(RPC)

all three should be set to AUTOSTART