Unable to view video (MPG, AVI, etc.) and AirSvcU.Exe Error

[Steve]

I believe these two problems are related. A couple months back, I was
unable to view any MPG, AVI, etc. video files. When attempting to do so
thru a variety of different applications, the computer would appear to
hang, only updating the mouse position every few seconds. I had to kill
the viewing app via task mgr. I did a clean install of the original OEM
Win2K SP2 and all was well again. In attempting to install some new
hardware last week I was forced to install SP4, and the symptoms all
came back, just like before. Uninstalling SP4 and the newly added
hardware did not correct it, just as before. This time, though, I also
noticed that an error during startup showed up again, and I think it
was correlated before as well. About a minute or two after Windows is
fully up, I get an error box saying "Airsvcu.exe has caused errors and
will be shut down" with no further information.

A Google search turns up lots of hits for people suspecting airsvcu of
being a virus, but actually being just a part of Windows Media Manager,
scanning and cataloging media files. Disabling automatic startup of the
"service" eliminates the error box, but does nothing to correct the
main problem. Uninstalling SP4 didn't help; even a complete system
recovery to before I installed SP4 (using the recovery disk I created
as a precaution) doesn't help. Reinstalling Nero 7 didn't help either,
and now I've got things tangled up between Nero and my video capture
card, so have some additional problems there to troubleshoot, that seem
unrelated (trouble selecting the hardware channel on the video card via
Nero).

Can anyone shed some light as to what's going on under the hood?

Steve Hendrix

 

[Steve]

A bit of further information: Microsoft Media Manager 1.5 installed
automatically as a part of some package a while back. Attempting to
uninstall Media Manager results in "SETUP.exe has generated errors and
will be closed by Windows. You will need to restart the program. An
error log is being created." The drwtsn32.log shows lots of information
that would be useful if I had access to the source code and link map,
but nothing I can decipher without it.

Steve Hendrix

 

[N. Morrow]

I believe these two problems are related. A couple months back, I was
unable to view any MPG, AVI, etc. video files. When attempting to do so
thru a variety of different applications, the computer would appear to
hang, only updating the mouse position every few seconds. I had to kill
the viewing app via task mgr. I did a clean install of the original OEM
Win2K SP2 and all was well again. In attempting to install some new
hardware last week I was forced to install SP4, and the symptoms all
came back, just like before. Uninstalling SP4 and the newly added
hardware did not correct it, just as before. This time, though, I also
noticed that an error during startup showed up again, and I think it
was correlated before as well. About a minute or two after Windows is
fully up, I get an error box saying "Airsvcu.exe has caused errors and
will be shut down" with no further information.

A Google search turns up lots of hits for people suspecting airsvcu of
being a virus, but actually being just a part of Windows Media Manager,
scanning and cataloging media files. Disabling automatic startup of the
"service" eliminates the error box, but does nothing to correct the
main problem. Uninstalling SP4 didn't help; even a complete system
recovery to before I installed SP4 (using the recovery disk I created
as a precaution) doesn't help. Reinstalling Nero 7 didn't help either,
and now I've got things tangled up between Nero and my video capture
card, so have some additional problems there to troubleshoot, that seem
unrelated (trouble selecting the hardware channel on the video card via
Nero).

Can anyone shed some light as to what's going on under the hood?

Steve Hendrix

Do you have the latest driver for your video card installed? I know that
seems obvious, but I had a (kind of similar) problem of Win2K freezing when
playing an AVI, MPG, etc. I chased my tail for about a month before
discovering that the correct Nvidia driver wasn't loaded. That fixed my
problem.
-Nick

 

[Steve]

Do you have the latest driver for your video card installed? I know that
seems obvious, but I had a (kind of similar) problem of Win2K freezing when
playing an AVI, MPG, etc. I chased my tail for about a month before
discovering that the correct Nvidia driver wasn't loaded. That fixed my
problem.
-Nick

You're right, that's much too obvious - and it WORKED!!
Y-A-A-Y-Y-Y-Y!!!

I've wasted untold hours fighting this problem, and was never able to
track it down. Just assumed I had sufficiently current video drivers,
because I only installed that video card a few months ago. Must've had
a similar problem with its predecessor, though. Anyway, I'm a happy
camper now. THANKS!!!

Steve Hendrix

 

[N. Morrow]

You're right, that's much too obvious - and it WORKED!!
Y-A-A-Y-Y-Y-Y!!!

I've wasted untold hours fighting this problem, and was never able to
track it down. Just assumed I had sufficiently current video drivers,
because I only installed that video card a few months ago. Must've had
a similar problem with its predecessor, though. Anyway, I'm a happy
camper now. THANKS!!!

Steve Hendrix

The funny thing is that I also went up and down all sorts of dead ends
before solving this. I searched Usenet, the web, and the MS knowledgebase
literally for hours without success. I also thought it might be a virus, or
some kind of malware, so I scanned and rescanned. I also unloaded about a
dozen apps thinking it was one that wasn't playing well with Win2K. Finally,
I was reading someone's post about some other issue and they mentioned the
video driver thing. Glad to hear this fixed it for you.
-Nick