svchost.exe error ALL THE TIME

Every once in a while lately on my Dell Laptop (Win XP) I get this error.

Pop up window for "svchost.exe - application error"
"The instruction at "a bunch of numbers" referenced memory at "oxooooooo". The memory could not be read. Click ok to terminate program or cancel to debug"

I hit ok and usually it makes my computer act wierd till I reboot. If I cancel, it does the same basically.

recently. I installed an auto Windows Update and it crashed while installing the update (and gave me this error) and now I get this message every time I reboot. So I just leave the window up and dont do anything. I also get a window that says something about some 32 bit thing (its not up right now so I cant quote it but its another windows send error to Microsoft type window.


I am going to reload all software and system cause Ive been meaning to for a while now and Im almost ready. but in the meantime, does anyone know what this is?

Like I said, it was happening before the update just not as frequently as now.


thank you for any suggestions

dave

 

I could've sworn hearing about a virus or some other malware assuming the svchost executable name and running in the background, but I don't know how to go about fixing it. Make some google searches about "svchost.exe virus", etc. and see what you get back. You'd be surprised how often your problems belong to other people too.