[abertillery]

I receive the following message
Widows defender encountered an error 0x800703eb cannot complete this function-can anyone advise how to resolve this problem please.
System-XP Home + SP2
2 disks C&F both disks 38GB
memory 1280MB with 630MB free
Memory load 50%

[muckshifter]

I suspect WD is trying to scan something but is hitting a brick wall. Not usually a nastie, but I ain't gonna rule it out.

Try this ...

Right click My Computer, choose Manage.
Click on the plus sign in front of Event Viewer.
Click on the System events log, in the left column.
Click on View (top menu), filter.
Click the down-arrow at the right of Event Source, and choose "WinDefend."
Click apply, click OK.

Now, in the right window, scroll back to the time of the original detection,
and look for yellow triangle marked records for those original detections.
Double click a record in the right window to open it and see the full
detail.

You can cut and paste to this thread.

What antivirus-antimalware-antitrojan-antiworm-antinastie software are you using?