[flytape8490]

Today, I decide to take a break from my Fedora partition and actually load into windows. It had been a day or two and i knew my thunderbird would be bursting at the seams with emails.

I boot.
It chugs a bit more than usual.
I get an error message about 5 minutes after I boot.
"Host process for windows services stopped working and was closed"
It said more than that, but it was all trivial information about what might have caused it and whatnot- then it popped up a windows help browser suggesting i run windows updates, because apparently every problem can be fixed with an update (it wasn't).

This shows up every time I boot. It doesn't really seem to be affecting anything (yet), but it still perturbs me and all the things I find on google seem to be particularly vague in the direction of something in the event log without telling me exactly why i'm there or what I'm looking for, let alone how to go about it.

So, what do I do to alleviate myself of this little dialog at login?

Kthnxbye.

[Crypton]

This error seems to happen due to some incompatibility between a program on your computer and Windows Vista. It could be a lot of different applications, so you first have to determine which program is actually causing the problem. You can do this by viewing the Event Logs on your Vista machine. Here’s how.

First go to Start and go to the Control Panel.


Now depending on your view, you can either click on Administrative Tools if you are in Classic view or click on System and Maintenance if you are in Vista view.





If you are in Classic view, you will see an icon for Event Logs and in Vista view you will see at the very bottom a link called “View event logs“.



Now you’ll want to browse through the Windows Logs folder and view the Application and System logs.



You should now look for events with red X’s next to them and that have the word Error. Look for them around the same time or before you got the “Host process for Windows stopped working” error message.

Method 1

Some people have had this issue with ATI Catalyst Control Center and found numerous errors in their event log. You can then try to find an update for the program or uninstall it if it is not needed. You might also have this problem with Windows Defender, so try to find an update for that. Also uninstall useless HP printer software, and check for other events from Nero, etc.
Method 2

It could also be caused by an incompatible driver installed on Windows. This could be for any piece of hardware on your system. You can figure out if it’s a hardware issue by booting up in Safe Mode and seeing if you get the error. If it’s not there, then it’s definitely some driver that’s being loaded when Windows starts up.
Method 3

If that didn’t do anything, you might be having an issue with the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) Windows service. If you starting getting this message after you did a Windows update, then BITS could be the culprit. You’ll need to follow the instructions in this Microsoft KB article on how to repair the corrupt BITS files.


Method 4

If you see an error in your Event logs that has EMDMgmt, then your issue might be caused by a thumb drive or some other external memory device, like a memory card reader. For some strange reason, you might have to connect the camera to your computer directly rather than using a card reader.
Method 5

This could also be caused by a faulty RAM memory stick in your computer. You might want to run a full diagnostic on your computer to make sure your RAM does not have errors on it. If you find a memory chip with errors, take it out and see if you get the error message. You can download a free app called Memtest86 to test the memory on your computer for errors.


Hopefully one of these methods fixed the Host process for Windows has stopped working.


Good Luck!

[flytape8490]

Thankyou for copying and pasting a google result that didn't really help much when I first looked at it. :P

Anyway- I went through the steps again and encountered a different set of problems than I did when I first read through them
1: I can't look at the system event logs.
2: It locked up on me twice.
3: In the applications set, there were notifications dating back to 1998. wtf?
4: Along the same vein as 3, some of the events listed for today take place 5 hours in the future.
5: The error messages i'm finding don't really harbor any useful information, such as an application name.

[flytape8490]

I think this is the one that applies to the service host error. Maybe it does harbor useful information and I have just no idea what I'm reading.

Faulting application svchost.exe_iphlpsvc, version 6.0.6001.18000, time stamp 0x47918b89, faulting module FastProx.dll, version 6.0.6001.18226, time stamp 0x49acb3cf, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x0001af7a, process id 0x494, application start time 0x01ca67f5b3a2936e.

There are two errors prior to it labeled "search" and occurred simultaneously.

The Windows Search Service has failed to create the SystemIndex search index. Internal error <7, 0x80071a91, Failed to save Crawl Scope Manager changes: file:///C:\Windows\*>.

and the other one (also labeled "Gatherer" in task category)

Advise Status Change failed. The system is probably low on resources. Free up resources and restart the service.

Context: Windows Application, SystemIndex Catalog

Details:
The content index service was stopped. (0x80041812)

Also, windows update did find an update this time- it wanted me to update windows update. not sure if that'l fix this issue but we'll see on next boot.

Oh, and now my laptop's touchpad mouse driver (alps pointing device something or the other) keeps crashing. Related? Maybe?

[joeten]

Hi this is a possible you can try http://forums.techarena.in/tips-tweaks/1092007.htm you could also try updating that driver, check your other drivers too,have you installed any new software or hardware,have you tried a simple system restore to when it was working, you might try running scans with malwarebytes and superantispyware download and update them before running,have you run a diagnostic on your ram and gpu,you could invoke the hidden admin account then look in the event viewer http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...windows-vista/ please use this carefully and disable when finished please stay off the net while doing any work from their you may be able to fix any issues with your own accounts permission or admin status whilst their

[flytape8490]

It stopped happening and then happened a few more times, so i have a bit higher resolution when it comes to figuring out the errors.

It is indeed the SVChost error. The search errors are still present, and I'm not entirely sure what those mean, but I don't really care since they're probably not what's causing the dialog.

So turning off this RACA agent thing in task scheduler, what does that do? Is it something I need to have running? Since I first posted this, I have found that a few programs don't run when I am in a session that has such an error (Final Fantasy7 [yes, it will run in vista!] for one). Will disabling this have the same effect?

[joeten]

Hi this is about RAC http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l...62(WS.10).aspx I also found this look at the posts from usasma http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/foru...p/t176003.html

[flytape8490]

So... pretty much disabling the RACA will keep windows from telling me if its unstable?... so will disabling it actually stop the issue from occuring- or will it still occur and just not tell me about it?

The second link to blepingcomputer.com didn't really do much for me, nor does it seem like it did much good for the OP on that thread.

[joeten]

Hi I think we may be working on the wrong issue for now and we should look at getting the eventviewer log service working which may help us with the other issue this may help http://www.winvistaclub.com/t58.html

[flytape8490]

New problem time!
Windows update has stopped doing its job.
It gives me "Unknown error 80072efd" whenever i check for new updates.
Microsoft says it has something to do with svchost, which was mentioned in one of the above error events.

Also, I disabled the RAC and the initial error stopped popping up, but this was after windows update stopped working so i don't think they're related.

[joeten]

Ok have a look here http://update.microsoft.com/windowsu...=en&IsMu=False
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=836941
http://www.updatexp.com/0x80072efd.html

[flytape8490]

none of them worked.
I'm tempted to just take it in to the school's tech center.

[flytape8490]

Another "Host Process for windows services stopped working" message.... and RAC is still disabled... -_-

Since disabling it was obviously not the solution- I went back to reenable the task because the fewer changes to the system there are the more comfortable I am.

The task is no longer there. I didn't delete it- I disabled it... why is it no longer there?

[joeten]

Hi I think if you can get the eventviewer sorted it may help give us a clue as to what is the culprit causing the host process error,have you tried running your antivirus or malwarebytes,superantispyware to rule that out,follow this here http://dotnetwizard.net/tutorials/st...-pc-resources/ but choose run instead of disable