rundll32 stops working

[Vikraman]

Hi, I am on windows vista sp1 home premium, and I often get a problem
saying rundll32 has stopped working. I googled and found out that this
is often caused due to nero's codecs which interfere with vista, but I
have neither nero nor roxio installed, except that I use the latest
version of vista codec pack. I just checked out by disabling startup
services in msconfig and rebooting each time, but it's all the same
every time, the problem just keeps repeating. I often get the problem
on resuming from standby. Can anybody recommend a solutionn? BTW, i am
on an HP Pavilion dv6846tx.

Problem log from "Problem Reports and Solutions"roduct
Windows host process (Rundll32)

Problem
Stopped working

Date
21-09-2008 14:00

Status
Report Sent

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: rundll32.exe
Application Version: 6.0.6000.16386
Application Timestamp: 4549b0e1
Fault Module Name: USER32.dll
Fault Module Version: 6.0.6001.18000
Fault Module Timestamp: 4791a7a6
Exception Code: c0000142
Exception Offset: 00009cac
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 16393
Additional Information 1: 9d13
Additional Information 2: 1abee00edb3fc1158f9ad6f44f0f6be8
Additional Information 3: 9d13
Additional Information 4: 1abee00edb3fc1158f9ad6f44f0f6be8

Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID: 633174191

 

[Vikraman]

Update:
I just ran an sfc /scannow and the output was:
Windows resource protection did not find any integrity problems

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Rundll32.exe loads and runs routines from 32-bit library (.dll) files and is
used by a large number of both system and third party program processes.
Codecs are only one of the many possibilities. Basically, the first thing
you need to do is decipher whether it's a system problem or a third party
program problem. Boot to safe mode, does the problem occur here? If not,
it's most likely a third party program that is causing the issue as they are
disabled in safe mode. Selectively disabling them, as you have already
started doing, is the next step, but don't overlook things like antivirus
and antimalware programs as they can be the cause as well. It is also
possible that this is being caused by malware that your av solution is
trying to prevent.

It may help to run process explorer to see if it can isolate what loaded
module is causing the failure. You can download it here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Paul Montgumdrop]

Update:
I just ran an sfc /scannow and the output was:
Windows resource protection did not find any integrity problems

That's not your problem. Something is trying to use rundll32, it's not
interfacing with rundll32 correctly and it's causing rundll32 to abort.
Think about it, rundll32 hosts 32 bit DLL(s) that need to be hosted.

<http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/rundll32/>

It could even be malware that doing it.

 

[zachd [MSFT]]

Agreed with Rick here.

Also, it would be very helpful to know what command line rundll32.exe was
being run with, which would indicate exactly what DLL is being invoked here.