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Summary: Svchost.exe is a Windows component that often shows up in error messages. Unfortunately, quite often when it does the news isn't good.
svchost.exe error: svchost.exe has generated an error - now what do I do?
One of the most common search terms that leads people to Ask Leo! lately is "svchost" or "svchost.exe". Besides wondering what svchost is, which I discuss in this prior article, many people are experiencing a svchost crash.
Folks, you probably have a virus.
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The svchost.exe error can result when your machine is infected with any of a number of viruses and worms. A quick search at the Symantec security reference site turned up no less than 53 references with some of the current top threats showing svchost symptoms.
So step one should be to make absolutely positive that you are running an anti-virus checking program and that the virus information it has is up to date. Depending on the specific virus you have there may be a removal tool available separately that will fix this one problem and allow you to continue with your upgrade (specifically, the blaster virus seems to be quite prevalent, and Symantec has a removal tool for it here).
Step one-and-a-half (it's actually equally important as step one) is to make sure your operating system has all of the latest patches applied from Windows Update. These viruses exploit vulnerabilities in the operating system that were patched months ago, so if you got infected then you're not up-to-date.
And finally, for a somewhat long, occasionally technical but very informative thread on this issue visit this discussion out at Experts Exchange.
Related:
Article C1881 - January 12, 2004
Luka: you are either infected with a virus, or you are being attacked by one on another machine. Make sure that your virus scans are current, and that your system is fully up to date, including the security patched mentioned in several of the comments here.
Goot luck!
Leo
Posted by: Leo at April 4, 2004 10:20 AMwIN xp Service pack 1. i tried on the microsoft.com
Posted by: Mathew at April 4, 2004 11:11 AMi used symantec's FixWelch and FixBlast an they said that i'm virus free. i also used AVG 7.0 witch is up to date and i updated my windows too.
this svchost is using 100% CPU when i'm offline also, so i doubt that someone is attacking me.
and i've got a new problem! my system is generating an error witch shuts down my system in 1 min.
Posted by: Luka at April 4, 2004 11:24 AMMathew: no error messages?
Leo
Posted by: Leo at April 4, 2004 12:30 PMLuka: it *so* sounds like the virus and RPC vulnerability. It echos most of what we;ve deduced here, but visit this page: http://ask-leo.com/d-blkrpc - he has step-by-step instructions. Best of luck!
Leo
Posted by: Leo at April 4, 2004 12:40 PMHi Leo!
Posted by: Luka at April 4, 2004 1:14 PMNew problems.I installed winxp updates on microsoft.com, but next time i checked for new updates, those witch i "already installed" were there. i did it for 3 times already.
I have just the same problem as matthew, it's the same service eating all my CPU. I have even tried to format my HD, but it's still eating 100% of my CPU, so now im running on totally new-formatted windows with service pack1 and ad-aware and Norton antivirus 2004.
Posted by: sebbski at April 6, 2004 8:20 AMI started getting this svchost.exe error when I had to disable the firewall in order to download the TurboTax updates. (I love TurboTax, but this is disgraceful. It should be able to play nicely with a firewall.) Anyway, it was my husband's job to keep the PC in good shape, but he's gone now and and I am pretty much clueless when it comes to fixing problems. Following your earlier instruction, I opened a command prompt and tried "tasklist" but it says there is no such command. I think it is going to be a long and painful process.
Posted by: nicelady at April 9, 2004 10:25 PMBut bless you all for being here and posting your problems and solutions.
Yes, TASKLIST.EXE isn't in XP Home, so I suspect that's what you have. Process Explorer, while a little more geeky (ok, a lot more geeky, but with lots of other goodies for us geeks :-) can also be used to perform the same tasks. Process Explorer is available over at sysinternals: http://ask-leo.com/d-sysinternals
Good luck!
Leo
Posted by: Leo at April 10, 2004 10:45 AMI'm closing comments on this article.
Please visit the new SVCHOST summary article here: http://ask-leo.com/archives/000105.html
Posted by: Leo at April 19, 2004 10:53 PM