Generic Host Process - MSI.DLL - Windows is no longer functional

On September 27th, when I was shutting down my PC, there were pending windows
updates and it shows a progress 1 of 1 installing updates during shutdown.
Some time into the process I got an svchost.exe - Application Error.

The instruction at 0x745f2780 referenced memery at 0x00000000. The memory
could not be read. After that errror the machine would no longer respond.

Now every time I boot, about a minute after windows boots, regardless if I
login or just leave the login prompt up, I get the same error. If I send the
bug report or click OK or Cancel to the error, windows stops respond and will
not even shut down.

My system is no longer usable.

Can you get into your system at all - if yes can you answer the below.
Are you up to SP2 - what AV do you run - do you have a CD/DVD burner like
Nero - are you set to auto-receive updates and auto download and install
without any input from yourself - what are the KB numbers offered in this
download.

Have you tried either booting the system to Safe Mode and/or utilizing
System Restore to roll the system back to just before the update
attempted to install ?

You fail to mention where msi.dll fits into the error message. Please
see this : The Automatic Updates service may stop responding
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/914810

There is a Hotfix available for an issue with msi.dll. Please see the
info on that page concerning obtaining it, if that is the issue.

As has now been reported in many places, this very frustrating problem
appears to have started sometime after the July updates.

See this thread in the
"microsoft.public.windows.server.update_services" newsgroup:

http://www.microsoft.com/communities...4-e79c86974dce

You can read the many suggested solutions, but to see what I've tried
you can start with my responses to Lawrence Garvin on 9-15-2006.

There are apparently many manifestations of this problem, with some
folks like you experiencing it at boot time, some while Windows is
running, and others at shutdown time when an update is pending (which
is the problem I'm experiencing on numerous computers). The common
factors are that it started after the July updates, and it occurs when
or after an update is attempted.

As I explained in detail there, to troubleshoot this I have disabled
all non-Microsoft startup programs, services, drivers, handlers,
components, BHOs, shell extensions, toolbars, etc., as well as many
Microsoft services I don't need. With Windows running at bare minimum,
I still have this problem. I also tried several suggested solutions,
all to no avail.

I am convinced this is a Microsoft problem induced by a recent update,
and may very well involve MSI.DLL. However, the suggested hotfix 914810
does not fix it, but instead changes the error to '0x476122d0'.
Uninstalling that hotfix makes it revert to the '0x745f2780' error. Of
course MSI.DLL did not get replaced recently, so there is obviously
some other factor involved.

For many of us this is becoming a critical situation, and we need a fix
very soon. The extremely frustrating thing about it is that no one can
tell us if or when Microsoft might even start to look at it, or how we
can get their attention to do so.

Same thing happend to me.
Just after installing last update I got SVCHOST.EXE error and my system stop
functioning.
After working arround the problem for three days I have found out that if
you have "Automatic updates service" enabled you get the error, but if you
disabled the service the system function but you cannot update your system.
Any more ideas?

I'm out of ideas.

Are you saying that you get the error even when you update manually
from the Microsoft update site?
http://update.microsoft.com/microsof...6/default.aspx

Updating manually from the automatically-downloaded hotfixes, or from
the Microsoft update site, appears to work for most folks. However, in
a corporate environment with tens or hundreds of PCs, this is not a
viable solution.

We need help from Microsoft on this.

Does any MVP here have access to a Microsoft employee that can tell us
if they are working on this problem, or that they will work on it if
they are not already doing so?

Alas, no. My recent understanding is that some MVPs did have the ear of
some MS employees, but that this link does not exist :-(. Well only in a
very few cases.
One did pop into this group from MS with a suggestion re svchost.exe
Worked for some but not others.

Yes, that's right.
To manually update from the microsoft update center I got to have the
Automatic updates service started and the type of service in automatic, even
though I have disabled automatic updates in Security Center.
I can update manually from the general download center, but I think that not
all the updates are there because the last one that crashed my system was a
windows defender update (I know because I could repeat the faliure situation
several times and always crashed trying to install this update). This update
does not apear at general download center.
Unisntalling windows defender everything seems to be alright, but there are
not updates to install at this moment. I don't kown what can happend the next
time I have to update anything. I think it'll crash again.

I read your previus post and read the posts in the link you mention, they
were very useful to get to a better situation than I was. Thanks for your
help.

I just wipe out a client's computer and reinstalled XP Pro from scratch.
Install SP2 and then started installing all the updates. On the second set of
updates, the computer rebooted and I received the same error message. This is
a clean machine with nothing but Microsoft on it. It definitely is related to
the Microsoft updates. This is happening two other clients as well, one on
their 2003 server and the other is xp pro.

In an effort to find some common factors:

1. Was MS Office installed before you began the updates? (If so what
version?)

2. Was Windows Defender installed before you began the updates?

3. Were you using WIndows Update (WU) or Microsoft Update (MU).

Thanks John for helping with this. To answer your questions:

1. Yes, Microsoft Office was installed. Microsoft Office 2003 Pro.

2. Windows Defender was not installed yet.

3. I was using Windows Update through Internet Explorer.

OK, that leaves out WinDefender and MU as common factors, but may point
to Office 2003.

So far I have not seen this problem on a computer without MS Office
2003 installed and updated. I support many computers with Office XP
installed, and none of them (so far) have had this problem.

Has anyone seen this problem without Office 2003 installed?

On my computers over here the updater service became corrupted after installing Windows Live Messenger. Here is the fix:

1. Click Start->Run, type "services.msc" (without quotation marks) in the open box and click OK.
2. Double click the service "Automatic Updates".
3. Click on the Log On tab, please ensure the option "Local System account" is selected and the option "Allow service to interact with desktop" is unchecked.

4. Check if this service has been enabled on the listed Hardware Profile. If not, please click the Enable button to enable it.
5. Click on the tab "General "; make sure the "Startup Type" is "Automatic". Then please click the button "Stop" under "Service Status" to stop the service.
6. Repeat the above steps with the other service: Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS), but you just need to make sure it is stopped as well but startup is set to manual not automatic.

Step 4: Re-register Windows Update components and Clear the corrupted Windows Update temp folder
================================

1. Click on Start and then click Run,
2. In the open field type "REGSVR32 WUAPI.DLL" (without quotation marks) and press Enter.
3. When you receive the "DllRegisterServer in WUAPI.DLL succeeded" message, click OK.
4. Please repeat these steps for each of the following commands:

REGSVR32 WUAPI.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAUENG.DLL
REGSVR32 WUAUENG1.DLL
REGSVR32 ATL.DLL
REGSVR32 WUCLTUI.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS.DLL
REGSVR32 WUPS2.DLL
REGSVR32 WUWEB.DLL

After the above steps are finished. Sicne temporary folder of Windows Update may be corrupted. We can refer to the following steps to rename this folder that

1. Click Start, Run, type: cmd and press Enter. Please run the following command in the opened window.

net stop WuAuServ

2. Click Start, Run, type: %windir% and press Enter.
3. In the opened folder, rename the folder SoftwareDistribution to SDold.
4. Click Start, Run, type: cmd and press Enter. Please run the following command in the opened window.

net start WuAuServ

I too found the'fix' at swigart consulting. I ran it yesterday on just under
2% of our systems having the problem ( 700 PCs total - busy day.)

the fix is just a workaround - if you leave automatic update to run again
and finish patching your PC will have the error again. (On one system the
only patch left was the malware scan from microsoft.)

Anyway to roll back to a previous version of the Windows Auto update DLLs?

Psudo36

Here's your fix...you'll need to contact microsoft to get the patch...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916089