I have someone's laptop running XP professional with service pack 2 that developed a unique problem after connecting to a hotel's high speed service. On startup, a message comes up Generic Host Process for Win32 Services encountered a problem and needed to close. No matter how many times you click it, it just keeps popping up and doesn't go away. Also, IE will not allow you to go straight to any non-MS site (like, you have to search through MSN and click the link to google, rather than just typing it). Anti virus came up clean, and windows was updated last night. Any suggestions?


PS - Get a mac is not a valid suggestion.

It sounds more like a spyware issue than anything else. Have you tried SpyBot Search and Destroy, or any other anti-spyware software?

Tried spybot, as well as an online scanner. nothing showing up. Probably something brokenated with windows. Unless something f'd up happened when the starnet stuff from the hotel internet installed (since uninstalled). Everything else is functioning fine except those two things. Well, except for the owner of the laptop, who's just really embarrassed.

1) Check the IE security zone settings. A lot of spyware messes with them. Just make sure they're all set back to the default level.

2) start -> run -> "sft /scannow". This will take a while, and if it finds anything it'll ask for the windows CD so that it can copy the orginal windows file over the corrupt one.

Doesn't always work, but they're a few good first steps.

Matthew

Also, did the hotel's internet connection require any software installations, configurations or other modifications? It might be that your network settings (proxy / firewall) were changed.

There are ways of registering a .dll to "extend" IE and do things like override the default home page and change the spinner graphic I don't remember any details from when I had a similar problem with my cable modem, but google and the =exact= names of the hotel software might help.

Recent Thinkpads have a reasonably cool program called "Access Connections" which is very useful for having different network configurations for multiple locations. There is a section for configuring IE buried in there.

(long shot)
any chance it's a dell?
my dell gave me the same trouble until I did some kind of update (I have a head cold, sorry I can't be more specific).

now that I think about it, mine would only do it when I booted, and I'm not using wireless.

sorry, I'm useless today.

Does your computer ask you to send a report to Microsoft when it occurs? If so, go ahead and send it, and it should direct you to a site with a specific patch for this problem. I had this issue on my work PC, and the patch fixed it right up. Otherwise go here to download the patch.

Also, regarding the spyware issue, are you running any programs that run all the time to catch spyware? Newer crap is using tricks like rootkits to install and hide themselves, and unfortulatly the process to stop and clean them up now is to have a resident spyware scanner running, just like a virus scanner. Otherwise, cleanup will be long and painful, usually requiring a boot cd to clean it all up. Having recently found a system in this state, I found it easier to nuke it, then install the Microsoft spyware tool. It is free, and seems to work well. IYour problem may not be spyware, but it is better to be safe if you are going to be connecting your Windows box to the internet.

Is the "system restore" enabled on the system, and if so, do you still have a restore point (checkpoint) from the time before the problems started? You might want to try to restore it. It helped me once get rid of some pretty stuborn piece of spyware.

Try running WinSock XP Fix.

wfaulk, Have you seen this? I laughed so hard..

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/22/microsoft_spyware_vb6/