Thursday, January 11, 2007

Setup VPN on Windows Server

Here's a pretty good website on configuration settings to set up a VPN on a Windows server.
http://www.chicagotech.net/vpnsetup.htm

svchost.exe 0x745f2780 Computer Freezes

I've seen this error twice now, so I thought I'd write about it.

3-5 minutes after logging onto a Windows XP computer with SP2 (it may appear on other versions) a message comes up stating that a Generic Host Service has failed and needs to close. Upon closing the window the computer is virtually unresponsive. This is a very generic message, to get a more specific message that helped, I had to reboot the computer and sit at the login screen for 3-5 minutes before the error containing the hexadecimal information 0x745f2780 and 0x00000000 appeared. To fix this problem simply:

1. Reboot the computer
2. During POST (the initial part of bootup) press F8 until the Windows Options Menu shows up
3. Select "Safe Mode" and press Enter
4. Log in with a local account
5. In the Start Menu open Control Panel
6. Open Security Center
7. Click Automatic Updates
8. Select Turn off Automatic Updates
9. Click OK
10. Reboot computer normally
11. Once logged in, open Internet Explorer
12. Click Tools > Windows Update
13. Perform Updates
14. Reboot computer again normally
15. Follow Steps 5-7 again
16. Select Automatic
17. Click OK and you're done!

Microsoft hasn't created a KnowledgeBase article about this issue. The closest I could find was kb818018