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Fortunately msdtc.exe is not a virus - it's a part of a couple of Windows applications.

Is msdtc.exe a virus?

Nope, not at all.

MSDTC.EXE is a part of a couple of Windows applications. It's the "Distributed Transaction Coordinator". It manages, as you might guess, transactions which are distributed across multiple servers.

Article C2280 - February 12, 2005 « »

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Leo Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed. After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.

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Recent Comments
28 Comments
Erica
September 4, 2008 11:10 PM

Well as everyone has stated to stop it and disable it from the Distributed Transaction Coordinator, I have done this yet it continues to run alongside dllhost.exe. I have stopped and disabled all remote access to my computer, yet my System Idle Process remains at 99%.....so what's the next tip......?

vijayan
October 22, 2008 4:04 AM

i installed one application in my system,every time i have to start the msdtc whenever i shut down and restart the system.
Even the services started,i have to stop and start the service.
give me solution

candyman1
November 21, 2008 7:06 AM

If I understand correctly msdtc has nothing to do with the average user and disabling it won't hurt operations anywhere on a PC.

That kinda depends on your definition of "average" - some software does rely on it after all. I would leave it alone unless there's a compelling reason to investigate further.
- Leo
22-Nov-2008

KtK
April 11, 2009 2:18 PM

I have msdtc.exe running in a folder In Windows/SoftwareDistribution/Download is this normal? Is is also running in Window/System32. I am afraid I have a mate watching program on my pc. Can you let me know? Thanks!

I don't believe "Windows/SoftwareDistribution/Download" is normal. I suspect malware of some sort. See if anti-malware software will get rid of it.
- Leo
12-Apr-2009

Colin Basterfield
June 27, 2009 3:39 PM

Hi,

I have Windows XP Media Centre Edition 2002 SP3, and want to, amongst other apps run Message Queueing, WCF services on my machine, albeit only in a dev sense. I can't get past base on either due to MSDTC terminating unexpectedly with Error 1067. It is running under Network Service, as oppose to local system. I have run through the 'fix' according to Microsoft as per http://support.microsoft.com/kb/891801, but to no avail it still fails to stay started.

The error in the event log is:
A critical error occurred in an MS DTC component therefore the process is terminating. The category field identifies the component that encountered the error. Please contact Microsoft Product Support. Error Specifics: d:\comxp_sp3\com\com1x\dtc\dtc\msdtc\src\cservice.cpp:436, Pid: 3888
No Callstack,
CmdLine: C:\WINDOWS\system32\msdtc.exe

I'm at a loss, and wondered if you can help me please?
many thanks in advance
Colin