Windows Search Protocol Host & Windows Explorer Errors

Hello there, my laptop has recently been having problems as of yesterday, and
I've been frantically looking for answers but to no avail. I have Windows
Vista Home Premium.

The first error:
"Windows Search Protocol Host Stopped Working"

This was kind of minor, as all it seemed to be was a pesky error message
that just continued to pop up continuously, as well as continually crashing.
I used a work-around by disabling Windows Search in Settings in the
Application Programs. I read that it only slows down searches mostly in
Outlook Express 2003, which is fine with me because it is not my e-mail of
choice anyway. A true "fix" would be preferable however, but is currently not
of immediate concern.

Info:
Faulting Application: SearchProtocolHost.exe
Version: 6.0.6000.16386
Time Stamp: 0x4549b668
Faulting Module: AcSpecfc.DLL
Version: 6.0.6000.16633
Time Stamp: 0x479ea76d
Exception Code: 0xc0000005
Fault Offset: 0x00004c4a
Process ID: 0xbb4
Application Start Time: 0x01c8775b62853714

The second error:
"Windows Explorer Has Stopped Working"

This one seems to be a very common error for most people...

Info:
Faulting Application: Explorer.EXE
Version: 6.0.6000.16549
Time Stamp: 0x46d230c5
Faulting Module: AcSpecfc.DLL
Version: 6.0.6000.16633
Time Stamp: 0x479ea76d
Exception Code: 0xc0000005
Fault Offset: 0x00004c4a
Process ID: 0xe98
Application Start Time: 0x01c8780793b5db2f

Similarly, the same thing happens with the Microsoft Office 2003 programs
(Word, Excel, etc)

Info:
Faulting application: WINWORD.EXE
Version: 11.0.8202.0
Time Stamp: 0x47420667
Faulting Module: AcSpecfc.DLL
Version: 6.0.6000.16633
Time Stamp: 0x479ea76d
Exception Code: 0xc0000005
Fault Offset: 0x00004c4a
Process ID: 0xbe0
Application Start Time: 0x01c87817f72e893f

I cannot access any Microsoft Office 2003 programs (Word, Excel, etc) as
they crash instantly, and I cannot access My Computer or my associated C: and
D: hard drives. Every folder within my Desktop and Documents are accessible
without crashes. It is all very perplexing.

I notice the faulting modules are the same for all three problems
(AcSpecfc.DLL), but I am unaware what purpose they serve or how they are used.

I don't know if this information helps, but these errors happened instantly
after a system restart. Before the restar, I had left the laptop on for about
a week straight, which I do often. I HAD everything in fine condition: no
viruses or spyware, plenty of hard drive space, & a weekly defragment. I had
iTunes and utorrent programs running, but they were shut off before the
restart. The last thing I did was connect my PSP 2000 Series through a USB
Drive and transfered some music and photo files to the PSP's ProDuo2 Memory
Stick. I did NOT do a "safe" disconnect of the PSP, as I have never done so
with flash and SD drives, and have never experienced problems from them. I do
not know if this is what caused the errors.

I am not very tech swavy, so if more information is required for possible
decoding, please let me know and offer some step-by-step processes to help me
out.

I pray someone has the answer, please help!

I would guess you are running Office with an 'application compatibility"
setting. Something known to not work.

What do you mean by an "application compatibility" setting?

I use an "HLV COMPATIBILITY" program to run "Anatomy & Physiology REVEALED"
DVDs that I use for studying for one of my University classes, but I've had
it downloaded for months now without previous errors. Do you suppose that has
some correlation?

The DLL reported by all three apps is part of the "Compatibility Mode"
feature of Windows see the help on that). Something is not good enough to
run on Vista.

Oh, I see.
I will look into it, but I honestly don't have any idea what to start
looking for as far as a "compatibility mode" is concerned.
Any good trouble shooting methods or tips concerning my problem? Researching
a topic only does me so good when I am still blind about the situation.

I ran the Program Compatibility Wizard and made sure all Office programs did
not have applied compatibility modes.

The following programs ran fine (and were also untested before this test,
presumably stable beforehand):
Microsoft Office Access 2003
Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003
Microsoft Office Publisher 2003
Microsoft Office Picture Manager

The following programs crashes immediately (Word & Excel only being tested
before this test, the other two presumably unstable beforehand):
Microsoft Office Word 2003
Microsoft Office Excel 2003
Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
Microsoft Office Powerpoint 2003

I also ran my laptop in Safe Mode, and all Office programs worked fine, and
My Computer and its C: and D: drives were accessible without crashes. I did
not enable Windows Search and test if "SearchProtocolHost.exe" would crash in
Safe Mode however, I may test that later in due time.

I do not know if this is a Compatibility Mode issue. Perhaps my
"AcSpecfc.DLL" file is simply corrupted?

I'm really desperate here, I need this laptop running tip-top for my
University assignments and study purposes and do not have the time or
convenience to bring it into a PC repair shop.

Rather frustrating situation. You can't risk untried fixes, and no one else
is seeing that (I run O 2003 just fine) The "Detect and Repair" feature on
the various Help menus is supposed to fix anything Office related, and SFC
should fix any Windows corruption. None of this should be risky at all
(Assuming you don't have fatal problems in the hard drive).

(SFC article)
Some Windows Vista functions may not work, or Windows Vista may stop
responding: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833

You don't need me to tell you to guard your data. I think it would be worth
it to you to have something reliable for backup. Acronis True Image, or
maybe just the built-in backup.
Acronis True Image 11:
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing...cts/trueimage/
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It is very frustrating!
I cannot find the "Detect and Repair" feature on the Help menus, so I used
SFC. Yes, still problems.

Within a Command Prompt (run as an administrator) I used "sfc /scannow"
Here were the results in the sfcdetails:

2008-02-26 15:26:29, Info CSI 00000025 [SR] Cannot
repair member file [l:24{12}]"AcSpecfc.dll" of
Microsoft-Windows-Application-Experience-Mitigations-C4, Version =
6.0.6000.16633, pA = PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE_INTEL (0), Culture neutral,
VersionScope = 1 nonSxS, PublicKeyToken = {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}, Type
neutral, TypeName neutral, PublicKey neutral in the store, hash mismatch

2008-02-26 15:26:36, Info CSI 00000027 [SR] Cannot
repair member file [l:24{12}]"AcSpecfc.dll" of
Microsoft-Windows-Application-Experience-Mitigations-C4, Version =
6.0.6000.16633, pA = PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE_INTEL (0), Culture neutral,
VersionScope = 1 nonSxS, PublicKeyToken = {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}, Type
neutral, TypeName neutral, PublicKey neutral in the store, hash mismatch

2008-02-26 15:35:35, Info CSI 0000014d [SR] Cannot
repair member file [l:24{12}]"AcSpecfc.dll" of
Microsoft-Windows-Application-Experience-Mitigations-C4, Version =
6.0.6000.16633, pA = PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE_INTEL (0), Culture neutral,
VersionScope = 1 nonSxS, PublicKeyToken = {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}, Type
neutral, TypeName neutral, PublicKey neutral in the store, hash mismatch

2008-02-26 15:35:35, Info CSI 0000014f [SR] Cannot
repair member file [l:24{12}]"AcSpecfc.dll" of
Microsoft-Windows-Application-Experience-Mitigations-C4, Version =
6.0.6000.16633, pA = PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE_INTEL (0), Culture neutral,
VersionScope = 1 nonSxS, PublicKeyToken = {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}, Type
neutral, TypeName neutral, PublicKey neutral in the store, hash mismatch

All 4 files seem to be the same one? In Safe Mode I located only one file
that matched the description of the four listed above:

C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-a..ence-mitigations-c4_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6000.16633_none_0a218b7bf538c6b9

I cannot find a AcSpecfc.DLL file on the internet that matches
"6.0.6000.16633", but there is a file on my laptop that I am judging is not
corrupted:

C:\Windows\AppPatch\AcSpecfc.DLL

I used these two path and file names to carry out the Command Prompt steps
to replacing the file:

1) takeown /f Path_And_File_Name
2) icacls Path_And_File_Name /GRANT ADMINISTRATORS:F
3) Copy Path_And_File_Name_Of_Source_File Path_And_File_Name_Of_Destination

After the tedious process, I received the following message:
"The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another
process."

Why would a corrupted file be being used by another process?

I will attempt this same method in Safe Mode later on this evening, but with
my current luck I am not fully convinced this will solve my problem.

Thanks for all the help, and any other tips or hunches are gladly appreciated.

The trick is to stop the explorer process. (task manager) You open your
prompt, and prepare your command, stop the explorer task in task manager,
run the replace command, and start explorer again ('new task' button,
'explorer.exe')
stop explorer task
Copy Path_And_File_Name_Of_Source_File Path_And_File_Name_Of_Destination
new task-explorer.exe
Hopefully, after a restart, you will see results, but be prepared for
failure to restart. Save the old file, to undo your work from safe mode
command prompt.
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