...and yes, there's a reason I haven't been on LJ quite as much.

[azurelunatic]

Tigereye (my formerly-faithful computer) has been pissing me the fuck off. What the hell is svchost.exe and why does it keep crashing?

I have a good idea of what it does, though. It is a thing that makes cut/copy/paste work; it is a thing that makes click/drag work; it is a thing that makes "open in new window" work.

Now, what do I spend most of my time online doing?

I spend it reading my friends page, commenting to my friends' entries, reading the comments others have written me, responding to them, writing in my own journal, re-reading my own journal, with some random other writing, and chatting (and of course posting the chat logs on private, because some crucial things come out in those and there's no promise I'll remember them otherwise...) And now note that I use Yahoo mail, and all of the links in Yahoo mail open in a new window...

So. You can see why I'm just a little pissed.

Comments

[wibbble]

svchost.exe is, apparently, a name for things that run from DLLs.

I think that perhaps a reinstall of Windows might be needed. That, from my discussions with Windows-afflicted friends, is the first port of call when things inevitably start Getting Weird and Breaking.

[azurelunatic]

Afflicted is as good a word as any for it.

[sionainn.livejournal.com]

I don't know what it is exactly... but ever since crisavec installed my firewall, I've been denying 8-10 requests a day for people or machines that want access to it.

Also, I had 4 trojans on my computer that were sharing out svchost.exe and my cpu. Caused major slowdown and a few freezeups.

I don't know anything about anything... but have you run an updated virus scan lately? Oh, and install a firewall if you don't already have one.

[azurelunatic]

Oh, joy. Glad you have your computer woes fixed.

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

svchost.exe is the Windows Services Host. If it is dying, then your Windows install is likely in imminent danger of ceasing to work entirely.

You could try an OS repair if you have the install media, but you might want to wipe an reinstall - my experience with Windoze is that once one critical system shows signs of being flaky, it means others have already decayed and are waiting to fail.

I trust you do run an AV program and keep it current, and if this machine resides on any kind of fixed connection that it is running a firewall, or lives behind one.


(Good time to install Linux...)

[azurelunatic]

Reinstall is scheduled for "as soon as marxdarx gets the modem sitting on his computer and I get my important files pulled off."

Bad geek, I am.

[stronae.livejournal.com]

Check that you haven't been hit with the latest DCOM attack, MSBlaster. (You might find the file msblast.exe on your hard drive somewhere -- if so, you've got it. Download the Symantec cleanup utility and MicroSloth patch.)

[azurelunatic]

Joy, O Joy.

[crisavec.livejournal.com]

I posted links to the patchs and the cleaning tool as my latest post, if you want to spare yourself the hunt for them.