Which svchost.exe (shutdown)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jim Richards
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J

Jim Richards

Using XP Pro w/SP2 w/Automatic Updates ON (Microsoft Certified Genuine
Microsoft System)

When I shutdown the PC I sometimes (not always) get this error message:

svchost.exe Application Error
The instruction at 0x009ccffb referenced memory at 0x00a23340. The memory
could not be written. Click on OK to terminate the program.

Could someone explain, in easy to understand language, what is meant by: "i
think one of the solutions is to
find that file and rename it with any extension like bak then windows will
rebuild that file and possibly resolve your issue."
For instance, how do I go about finding "that file" because there are many
svchost.exe running on my machine?

Thanks in advance for any help on this. Jim
 
Jim,
As far as when I've seen this error, it had to do with automatic updates
which runs under svchost.exe The svchost.exe will run several different
processes with each running a specific set of windows services. In order to
get this to stop coming up, go to control panel > automatic updates and
change the settings from download and install automatically to either off or
notify but don't download or install. You can routinely check for new
updates on or around the second tuesday of every month.
If turning off Automatic Updates doesn't work, the quote that you asked
about to change the extention to .bak can be performed as follows:
It is better to have svchost.exe not running, so you can either boot into
safe mode, or you can simply end all svchost processes. It would be
preferred to boot into safe mode however, also create a restore point or
back up before renaming the svchost file.
Go to My Computer > C Drive (or the drive containing your windows
installation) > windows folder > system 32 folder.
Once you get there, scroll down and you should see svchost or svchost.exe.
If you see just svchost, click on tools on the menu bar > folder options >
view tab > scroll down and uncheck "hide extensions for known file types"
then click OK to exit out of the options.
Once you can see svchost.exe under the folder, right click the file and
choose rename, renaming the file to svchost.bak or svchost.old.
The reason the other person mentioned to try it this way is to make sure
that the file was still on the system in case there were any further issues
after the change and you can simply rename svchost back to the original .exe
file.

Once again, please try disabling automatic updates before renaming the
svchost file.
Hope this helps.. best of luck
-kenkcj
 
Thank you kenkcj. I have turned Automatic Updates OFF on both of my
computers. I'll let you know later if this stops that error message at
shutdown. Jim
 
Jim,
Please confirm if shutting off automatic updates worked on your computer? If
so I have the link to the hotfix available so that you may have it turned
back on instead of searching for updates manually.
-kenkcj
 
No, it did not stop the shutdown error message at all. I was just about
ready to go into C:\Windows\System32 and change that file to svchost.bak and
see if that would fix it. Thanks so much for your interest tho. Jim
 
I changed svchost.exe to svchost.bak and have shut down my computer 7 times
since then and, so far, no sign of the problem. I sure hope that did it.
Thanks for your help. Jim
 
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