Windows installer hangs, not working at all

Since a few weeks for some reason I cannot access some programs (like MS Word), it just says that "the operating system is not presently configured to run this application". It doesn't show up as a registry item either same as some other programs.

Now my problem is that I cannot install a new version, nor openoffice, or anything else for that matter that uses windows installer.

I've checked if the service and subservice was running and they were, I've tried SFC /scannow and Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth but they both didn't fix the problem ( did fix some corruptions though).

What happens with the installer is basically it doesn't do anything. It just sits at initializing forever and doesn't install anything at all. Currently cannot install any programs but don't want to reinstall windows since I have a lot of programs and settings I don't want to lose.

Is there some way of fixing this? I've googled around a lot but couldn't find anything.

I've just updated to windows 8.1, installed the new .net framework and still same problem. I did do the upgrade with my current settings and files but still.

I don't want to do a reinstall and lose everything, my last image is made 1 year ago and currently very out of date (so stupid).