Hey guys,

When I was playing with my computer, an error message of "Generic Host Processes for Win32 has encountered a problem and needs to be closed. Sorry for the inconvenience."

I click on the debug button, which result another message saying that my computer will be restarting in 1 minute...

What happen? Do I have software problem over here?

My specs:
Sis motherboard
Pentium 4; 2.4Ghz
256 DDR Ram
40 GB harddisk
Windows XP PRO

Thanks.

Originally posted by kenghoong
Sorry for the inconvenienceA polite software program? :rolleyes:

Are you running Anti-virus and a Firewall? Do you have all the XP patches?

I think I would run an on-line Anti-virus along with HijackThis...

Are you sure it didn't say anything about Remote Procedure Call? If that is the application closing, usually within a minute or so of starting windows, it's the MS Blaster (http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.blaster.worm.html) worm. At least one of the sites I looked up for info noted the error message you're getting in relation to MS Blast, but so far I've seen no confirmation of that. Check for it anyway.

Edit: Just found it again so maybe it's genuine. More Info (http://www.uh.edu/infotech/news/story.php?story_id=690)

If that's not it, so far I haven't found much concrete info on Generic Host Processes. I have also found articles related to Backdoor.Sdbot.S (http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/backdoor.sdbot.s.html)

Generic Host Process is just that...a process that XP can't quite pin down to a specific thing, or something that only needs some basic network funtionallity that can be covered by native XP drivers/apps. So, in other words it can be anything...good or bad.

For HijackThis...try here (http://mjc1.com/mirror/hjt/)

A good AV scan is also in order...

Bad news guys...

Paleo Pete, u are correct. Today I got the same thing when I wanted to surf the net. Norton AV pops up a message saying a virus has been removed from your computer, W32.Blaster.EWorm. The one minute shutdown message appear at the same time.

The worst is that I can't complete a virus scan using Norton AV. I had this problem saying that a critical error occured. It was error 3019,1. After that, I look thorugh the Symantec website and they gave me some solution which is not useful. So I scan C:Windows, whcih the worm was removed last time. No problem.

For a quick and fairly easy way of killing it try this:

http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/

Got that patch from the link of Paleo. I don't see any problen rite now. Should tell you guys if encountered it again. Thanks a lot guys!

PROBLEMS!

Now windows XP is not booting up. My pc is running fairly just this afternoon, but now it hangs halfway during boot up. I can boot using safe mode and nothing else. Scanned for virus, found none. Ran CHKDSK, found some problems, and with CHKDSK /F, it didnt run when I restart the system. System Restore Point failed.

Is there any other way, besides the most annoying task of all-- formatting?

When you remove Blaster in XP you have to disable System Restore as it will be corrupted, then remove the viruses. When done create a new Restore Point.
The patch for Windows keeps the computer from being re-infected but does not fix damages.

uh...so what do I do now? restore to the long long time ago's point? :(

When you disable SysRestore you will remove ALL previous restore points...

so when you are clean, before you blow out the old restore points, makes usre you have everything the way you want it, then didable SysRestore.

Then after you are done, re-enable SysRestore and manually create a new base point.

After scanned another time with norton AV, I disabled System Restore and I cant enable it back cuz I still can't start Windows normally. System Restore could only be enable in normal windows. Guess that there is no other way available than formatting huh...

uh...so what do I do now? restore to the long long time ago's point?

Nope, Blaster corrupts System Restore, as noted above, so your old restore points are either corrupted or should be considered highly suspect. I wouldn't even think about using one, due to the possibility of corrupted restore points or actually re-installing the virus/worm.

Since Checkdisk found problems, you might have corrupted system files or damage to the drive in the same physical location some critical files are located. My guess would be try the drive manufacturer's diagnostics software, usually available on their website.

If a reinstall is forced, maybe a repair install rather than a complete format? I'm not sure how reliable the XP repair utility is, but it might be worth trying.

Grr :mad:

I had backed up my folders. And now I wanted to it formatted already. But Windows Xp installation stopped halfway, when it finished loading files. It hangs when it says Starting Windows.

I can't even install windows now~! What can I do?

Have you run the harddrive diagnostics?? It would be important at this point to make sure that there are no problems with your harddrive.

You could possibly have a bad spot on the harddrive that keeps messing things up...

Erm, yeah I'm going to do that. Meanwhile, do you think its a good idea to format the hard disk first? then only start windows setup?

If the harddrive has a major problem trying to continue to install Windoze would be a waste of time...

Yet another problem. I do not have a floppy drive. How can I use that hard drive diagnostic program? (Powermax.exe by Maxtor):(

Do you have a CD burner?

Yes, what can I do about it? The program only allows Floppy right?
or do I miss something here?

Easiest solution to a no floppy situation would be to pull the drive and slave it to a computer that has one...

The harddrive diagnostics allow you to select which drive you want to test...

The more difficult solution would be to make a bootable CD that has the diagnostics on it...

For this you would need the expertise of someone like Paul Komski or mjc to instruct you how to go about setting one up...