Hi again. I had some problems with the Windows Update service which was failing to run and I didn't notice it until now. There were a couple of updates that needed installing. I can confirm that Blender 2.72 win64 works on my machine. Sorry for all of the trouble.

Version blender-2.70a-windows64.zip works for me with default settings.

I also tried the latest 2.72 build. Same thing happens

I tried installing 2.71 but the installer crashes at: Execute: "C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\blender.exe" -r. The zip file also crashes when I try to run it after it prints in the console "Switching to fully guarded memory allocator."

I do have my Windows 7 up to date. Any other things I can check?

If it was a 32bit Blender, this is what I downloaded when I selected the 64 bit version. The installer that I used is called blender-2.72-windows64.ex; the zip blender-2.72-windows64.zip.
The nVidia drivers are up to date. I restarted the computer and I still get the same error.

I also tried the zipped version. The same problem appears. I installed in C:/Program Files as well as in D:\Blender Foundation\blender. The console was started with Admin rights.