Windows 7 Home Premium update issue

[GoFigureItOut]

This issue has gotten the best of me! When trying to update Windows 7, it errors, and say the update service has been disabled. I thought somehow may be it was disabled, so I checked with services.msc. Windows Update is in fact running and all of its dependencies, too. Another strange problem with the laptop is, drivers will not install. I've downloaded the drivers numerous times from the manufactures website. However, in the device manager, it states that the drivers cannot be used because they have not been 'digitally signed'. I tried to edit the registry to see if I can allow updated that way, but I'm not allowed to make changes; even though I'm on the administrator account. I'll never use a 64-bit OS again!