RUNDLL32.EXE Application Error

[LOUISSSSS]

i get a popup every now and then saying i have a RUNDLL32.exe Application Error @ Memory 0x_____ etc etc

it is somehow related to csrss.exe (i think?)

i'm like 3/10 when it comes to knowing my way around windows, i tried to delete rundll32.exe in WINDOWS\system32\rundll32.exe but got a File Delete Error: Access is Denied


what did u guys ever do to fix this? any ideas?

 

[Dahak]

you wont be able to delete its as it is a main windows file. you will have to see what is running at the time the error pops up or what you are doing to see if there is a program loading / being used.
may not hurt to run a virus check and a spyware check

 

[NoelS]

LOUISSSSS,

Go to Start, Run and type in Msconfig. When it opens, go to the start dialogue and see if Run32dll.exe is there and checked. If so, uncheck it and then hit Apply. After you reboot, it may go away...

Noel

 

[LOUISSSSS]

Originally posted by: Dahak
you wont be able to delete its as it is a main windows file. you will have to see what is running at the time the error pops up or what you are doing to see if there is a program loading / being used.
may not hurt to run a virus check and a spyware check

when the error pops up and i "go to process" in the task manager, it points me to "csrss.exe"

i've run: AVG anti-virus, AVG Anti Spyware, SUPERANTISPYWARE, and Windows Defender and deleted what i can

 

[LOUISSSSS]

Originally posted by: NoelS
LOUISSSSS,

Go to Start, Run and type in Msconfig. When it opens, go to the start dialogue and see if Run32dll.exe is there and checked. If so, uncheck it and then hit Apply. After you reboot, it may go away...

Noel

but dont' i need to have rundll32.exe running?

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
i get a popup every now and then saying i have a RUNDLL32.exe Application Error @ Memory 0x_____ etc etc

it is somehow related to csrss.exe (i think?)

i'm like 3/10 when it comes to knowing my way around windows, i tried to delete rundll32.exe in WINDOWS\system32\rundll32.exe but got a File Delete Error: Access is Denied


what did u guys ever do to fix this? any ideas?

I have had rundll32 error on bootup with modded Nvidia drivers for my Dell laptop,basically I just used different modded Nvidia drivers to see which ones my Dell Laptop was happy with (obviously I stayed with the ones that did not cause that problem),did you go into problem reports /solutions icon and see what driver is causing the problem?

 

[NoelS]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS

Originally posted by: NoelS
LOUISSSSS,

Go to Start, Run and type in Msconfig. When it opens, go to the start dialogue and see if Run32dll.exe is there and checked. If so, uncheck it and then hit Apply. After you reboot, it may go away...

Noel

but dont' i need to have rundll32.exe running?

LOUISSSSS,

If you un-check it and it needs it, Windows will re-apply it. I believe Windows can run several run32dll's at a time... I don't think un-checking it will hurt anything. You can always use System Restore to go back before the original problem occurred (to install th older Registry)...

Also, go to Google and check out "csrss.exe" and see what you get there...

Noel

 

[kylef]

CSRSS = client server runtime sub-system, and is the primary component of the Windows subsystem on NT. It is a critical system process, and it is absolutely not to blame here.

Rundll32.exe is a Microsoft-supplied wrapper application that can be invoked by ANY other program or driver on your system. Many applications REQUIRE this application to function properly, so you cannot delete it! Its entire purpose in life is to load a specified DLL (specified by a command-line argument) and then to invoke a function exported by that DLL.

rundll32.exe is commonly used to force code to run in a separate process, for example if you want to run a 3rd party extension or custom task/plugin but you don't trust the plugin enough to run it in your own address space. (Usually if you load a DLL into your process address space and it crashes, then your process will die. Running the code via rundll32.exe will create a 2nd process that is isolated and cannot crash your process.)

The crash you are seeing is NOT caused by Rundll32.exe, but rather is caused by the DLL which rundll32.exe loads. To track down the culprit, you must find the provider of this DLL and possibly who is invoking it.

There are two pieces of information I would use to track it down, both of which require the process object to be alive for inspection (when you get the "Such and such program has encountered an error" dialog, the process is usually gone). To keep the process alive for inspection after crashing, I would install a post-mortem debugger like WinDBG (available for free from Microsoft).

Then, the next time you see the rundll32.exe crash, you can look for two things which can help point to a culprit:
1) Which process spawned the rundll32.exe PID? Process explorer or tlist.exe can show you the process hierarchy. Knowing the identity of the parent process will help you understand why rundll32.exe is running, or at least its context.
2) What are the command-line arguments to rundll32.exe? One of the command-line arguments is the pathname for the DLL that crashed (see this Microsoft KB). The author of the DLL is the likely culprit.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: kylef
The crash you are seeing is NOT caused by Rundll32.exe, but rather is caused by the DLL which rundll32.exe loads. To track down the culprit, you must find the provider of this DLL and possibly who is invoking it.

Yup. Rundll32.exe is reliable. If it wasn't, it would have been fixed A LONG time ago, since it's invoked by many other programs. The only time you see it is when the program that called it crashes.