SVCHOST.EXE error...any info appreciated.

[LeftCoast]

Hi all,

I just reinstalled WIN2KPRO in a friends box (Asus A7N266-VM,Athlon 2000+,256 PC2100) after wiping the HDD. It was tested for 24 hrs with no probs, but 24 hrs after he has it back, he keeps getting this SVCHOST.EXE error,program will close screen. He lives quite far away, so I don't want to have to go over there if I can avoid it.

He uses Verizon DSL, and also loaded some AOHell software, reinstalled Nero(over copy I put in), and installed a nic driver(again over the driver I had in already). He gets online, but it's slow.Obviously, he may be his own worst enemy...

The only thing I can think of (from my end) is that I got over-zealous shutting down services, and disabled one that DSL requires to function properly. For example, Remote Registry Service, Telnet, Messenger, ect.)

Also, he got a "registry has changed, was the change expected" message from Norton AV, but I wonder if that's just AOL's settings messing with the registry.

Anything sound familiar to some of you old dog techs?

Thanks in advance.

-LC

[squeech]

There are pretty common symptoms of the Blaster Worm. I would run the removal tool and registry patch immediately

[muno]

Yes, those are the symptoms, but doesn't mean you're infected.
We had 3000 computers doing the same without any of them being infected, patching the hole with the ms patch solved the problem - but still is unclear why did it happen.

Go to www.microsoft.com/download , it's among the most popular patches
-M