Anyone know about svchost.exe?

I keep getting messages from my firewall that it is trying to be accessed,
"A remote system is attempting to access MS generic host process for win32 services on you computer.
Program is C:\windows\system32\svchost.exe"
And it says it is low risk and recommended I permit it

but if I allow it, the computer has problems, if I block it doesn't. So what is it? I saw from a search on google that it is part of windows.

But why is it causing me problems and why does something keep wanted to access it?

HELP NEEDED!

I have been experiencing problems when on line since last Friday. I had a few blue screens with VXD and VMM faults. Also have a box appear since Friday from internet explorer stating 'internet explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. Sorry for any inconvience' they then want you to send your files to them. I clicked on the technical tab to see what has gone wrong and it had a lot of modules listed ie; module 1 DDRAWEX.DLL, 2. DDRAW.DLL, 3. NTDLL.DLL, etc.
Yesterday I done a system information system file checker. The result was two corrupted files; NETDI.DLL in C:\\WINDOWS\SYSTEM and SETUPX.DLL in C:\\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.
Do you think that is causing the IE6 faults? I have tried to uninstall IE6 but don't have the option to do so, they only list repair or add a component.
How can i rectify the corrupted files? I am running WIN98V2.
HELP!

Jumpin, it could be any of a number of things, e.g. the grey box messenger spam, or of course the new RPC virus attempting to infect you... Remote systems have no business using svchost so don't allow it. Unless of course you run a home network and the requests come from another computer on the network.

Generally speaking, the whole point of a firewall is to keep things out, so don't allow things in unless you desperately have to!

IT, start by doing a full/thorough disk scan, checking for bad sectors which may have been the source of your problems. Then try repairing IE.

Kayak

I have repaired IE6 five times already without success, I will do the full scan now and report results, thanks.

I am trying to get best use from zone alarm. I don`t know which cookie controls to use. Can anyone advise please
eg I ticked web bug and it tells me that web bug is blocked when I post on this thread. Do I need web bug enabled?

recently i am having following problem on my pc with windows 2000:

Everything works fine for the first few minutes after which i get the following error message: 'svchost.exe has generated errors and will be closed by windows'.

After this I have following problems:
1) cannot navigate to linked pages or windows while surfing (not from all links but from some links)
2) when opening en existing exel doc, get the message 'cannot use object linking and embedding'. Then exec generates an error and is closed by windows.
3) when opening word application get the message 'this document could not be registered. It will not be possible to create links fromother documet to this document'

Would be grateful if anyone can throw somw light on thsa problem and how to fix it.

Thanks
Shammy

Kayak

Have just finished the full scan disc. Firstly when it was a 1/3 of the way through I got an illegal operation box warning with this detail, 'MSSINF032 caused an invalid page fault in module MFC40.DLL at 0167:7b983c64'.
I closed the box and carried on with the scan disc which has turned up no errors.
I have repaired IE as you suggested.
I have just done another file scan and have a new corrupted file to go with the two others.
*1.leonardo da vinci.DLL*
2. NETDI.DLL
3. SETUPX.DLL
What can I try now Kayak?
Waiting patiently with a headache!

Insider Trader

You could try booting to the C prompt and then running scandisk.

Optimist

I have just done a thorough scan disc, it took over 3 hours and reported no errors. What would be the advantage of doing another?

Insider Trader

If you were running scandisk from within windows then windows still has control of some system files which could stop it doing it's job.

Booting to the C prompt stops windows starting so scandisk will have full control. If scandisk took so long you were probrably doing a disk surface scan as well. Unless your disk is about to fail big time this should only need doing once so try leaving this option out. Instead of using scandisk you could try "Chkdsk /f" from the C prompt.

IT, the sort of random errors you're getting are often caused by hardware errors, hence my recommending the full surface scan. It's worth doing a chkdsk/f to see whether there are already bad sectors on the disk. If there are no bad sectors on the disk then that isn't the problem.

Check that your case fan and processor fan appear to be spinning normally.

It could also be a memory problem. If you have two or more DIMMs you could try taking out one at a time to see whether the problem goes away.

Also worth doing a complete virus scan. Two free ones on the web I use are http://housecall.antivirus.com/housecall/start_corp.asp and http://www.pcpitstop.com/ .

Apart from that, it could be just about anything... had you loaded new software or changed the hardware just before the errors first appeared? Is it particularly hot in the room compared to other days?

Kayak and Optimist

Firstly thanks for your help. I have done a full virus scan two days ago (Panda, even scans compressed files and cleans them, all free too) and everything seems ok. My fans appear to be working ok too (my machine is only a year old). Someone else said about the RAM, as I have SD RAM I was advised by the chap who sold me my set up to replace SD with DDR as my machine can take both (but not at the same time) so I bought two sticks of 128K DDR RAM and installed them, but the machine wouldn't even power up! So I replaced the old 128*2 sticks of SD RAM. You say to do a "Chkdsk /f" from Cprompt, how do I do that?
Do you know what those corrupted files are I posted and what they do, as they all seem to end with DLL?

To boot into DOS (the C prompt) you need a bootable floppy disk, e.g. the Windows setup disk, and use the option to boot into DOS. If you don't have one handy, you can open a MS-DOS window by clicking on Accessories/Command Prompt and use it from there. That will give you details of any bad sectors but it obviously won't do you a Scandisk without Windows as Optimist suggests.

I would try taking one stick of memory out at a time and seeing whether the situation improves with one or the other gone.

The corrupted files are symptoms rather than the cause. The Leonardo da Vinci is a screen saver, NETDI is a file used in networking, and the other is a setup program file. Those files were probably not even being used when your machine crashed and so there is likely to be some memory corruption going on if it isn't the disk itself that's faulty.

Hardware errors often show up in hot weather.

IT

In addition to Kayaks suggestions.

You can boot to the C prompt pressing F8 as you start the computer and you are presented with a menu of start up options. Choose 'Command prompt only' and you will boot to the C Prompt. Type chkdsk /f followed by enter this will check the filesystem and attempt to fix any errors.

If this checks out OK then check the memory - if you only have one stick of SDRAM you could try swapping it to a different slot.

If the fault is caused by hardware try leaving the cover off and directing an office fan into it to see if there is any difference (beware of redistributing dust). It is possible that the disk is heating up and causing errors. Can you reposition it or get more airflow over it?

Best of luck.

Optimist

All this started after the last CMC update. If I right click I and enter 'encoding' I am presented with some options, which should I select, western european (ISO) or western european windows.

Western European (ISO), but I don't think it's related to your problems. I have the latest CMC update which works fine.

I'm at present on my back up computer and running the scan disk through DOS C prompt. The only command that would work was Scandisk.exe and not the chkdsk /f command you gave me. I think this scan is going to take about five hours!

:O(

Sorry about that IT, I think we forgot to tell you that you may have to specify the full path name... Try

C:\windows\command\chkdsk /f under windows 98 or
C:\winnt\system32\chkdsk /f under windows 2000/XP

Kayak

I stopped my scandisk and put in the command you have just posted and I got this message again, 'chkdsk has not checked this drive for errors. You must use SCANDISK to detect and fix errors on this drive. Which I did and got these entries again.
Media discriptor
File allocation tables
Directory structure
File system
Free space
Surface scan (5hrs +)
So I was put back to square one again. Am I doing this right?