Windows 8.1 laptop not updating?

So I got my Dad a new Windows 8 laptop (has Windows 8.1 on it) had it for about a month now, and every single time he tries updating, it says "cannot update reverting changes" or something like that... then it just gets stuck in some retarded loop..... or it will stay like that up to hours... I googled this and apparently not even Microsoft has answers to this either. on top of that his laptop isn't even running 100% either, well the laptop itself works fine, but Windows 8 is just bugged as heck... nothing really works, he can't get into the settings to turn off the automatic updates... sometimes it wont let him into his wifi options... ya, this is just seriously one broken OS... how the duce do people get around this and whatnot? (and yes his laptop is virus clean) I removed a lot of the stupid programs that came with it that weren't even important....