BleepingComputer.com: Services and controller app has encountered a problem

How can I fix this problem?

My daughter ran into a problem late last evening where her Dell Inspiron 1520 (running XP 2002 SP3) where a flag popped up with the message: The Services and Controller App has encountered a problem" and must close down. The accompanying error message referenced sz App Name services.exe sz AppVer: 5.1.2600.5755 offset 000097b8, and then further referenced two other files: \temp\WER8f42.dir00\services.exe.mdmp, and \WER8f42.dir00\appcomp.txt.

Before I got into the act, my daughter Googled the problem, visited a Microsoft help file (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=316434) that suggested that the problem might be unsigned digital signatures for drivers, and we ran Start\Run\sigverif a couple of times to make the list of unsigned driver signatures apparently go away.

When I logged back onto her laptop, however, I got same pop-up error message, and the computer shut down again. I again logged on using safe prompt, and ran a virus scan on her laptop, and found no issues.

When we were encountering this 'Services and Controller App' problem, the laptop slowwwwwed to a crawl, taking me a couple of minutes at least to even open up the control panel. But when I went to Task Manager, there was nothing consuming more than 25000K of memory.

I tried to check her disk for errors from Windows Explorer (C:\properties\tools\error-checking), but the system would not give me access to the hard drive with this tool.

Now, when I log back on using safe prompt, either with or without the networking option, I cannot get past the Welcome screen. Her name comes up, I click on her name, I see "loading her personal settings" and then "saving her personal settings", I hear the Microsoft welcome music, I may or may not see her desktop for the briefest of moments, before the screen returns to the Welcome screen. I have warm booted, cold booted a few times now, and remain stuck at the Welcome screen.

At one point, when I was closing down, one program (xcfgsvc.exe) was not closing down cleanly, and I had to use the nuclear approach to getting it to close down.

I have Googled "Services and controller app has encountered a problem", and followed a few internet paths, but have not yet found any actionable advice to follow. I have not found any relevant advice either, yet, on Microsoft's website, and in fact when I went back to the Microsoft reference that my daughter was looking at earlier, I was less sure that this was the right place to be looking.

She has not recently installed any new software or made any changes to her hardware, and I have been counseling each of my teens on the KISS principle where it comes to leading anything new onto her PC, and to run virus scans weekly if not more frequently.

Earlier this afternoon, I tried to check the event log on her PC (my computer \ manage \ Event Viewer), and tried to check both the application and system logs, but each time got a message with something to the effect that I did not have access to the "RPG" (?) or (RPA)" (?) server or services, or something like this.

She ran into some virus issues a month or so ago (a legacy issue that had originated when she came home), and so I spent a couple of days a month or so ago, thoroughly cleansing her machine of any virus and/or spyware issues at that time, and I have counseled her continually to be careful about where she goes on-line, what she downloads, and to run her virus and spyware protection regularly.

I would appreciate any help you can provide. Of course as luck would have it, she is home (east coast) from college (in Arizona), and has not brought home any of the software disks with her.

Thanks,
bluelaser

This post has been edited by Bluelaser: 27 June 2009 - 03:57 PM

Do you (not your daughter) have a genuine Microsoft XP install CD?

<<The accompanying error message referenced sz App Name services.exe sz AppVer: 5.1.2600.5755...>>

Info worth knowing: http://www.neuber.com/taskmanager/process/services.exe.html

If your services.exe file is located in the System32 folder of Windows and is 108KB...then it matches mine (and probably is valid).

Which would say to me that your system is probably in need of a replacement file, due to damage.

Since the system won't boot into Windows...my only technique for such replacement would be a repair install, using a MS XP CD.

<<...and then further referenced two other files: \temp\WER8f42.dir00\services.exe.mdmp, and \WER8f42.dir00\appcomp.txt.>>

The references to the two temporary files...that's just Windows trying to report that something is wrong. If the system could boot, they might be useful.

Louis

Louis, thanks very much. I do have an XP CD, and so I will try a couple of the things you suggest. Thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it.

Since you have an XP CD (and Recovery Console)...I suggest running the chkdsk /r command on that boot volume, from the Recovery Console.

How to use CHKDSK in the XP Recovery Console - http://pirules3.14.googlepages.com/recovery_console_chkdsk. I would do this before attempting any other form of repair.

Louis

Louis:

Actually, I was wrong - I do not have XP CD (and Recovery Console). I just tried re-booting to the last known good configuration,and that still will not let me by the Welcome screen. I tried also Alt-Tab to get to an alternate Log-in screen, and tried logging in there, and still got thrown into the same loop - to the destkop for a second or two, and then back to the Welcome screen. SO this happens regardless of whether I am coing in via safe mode or normal mode. Since my daughter's XP CD is on the opposite coast, I am beginning to wonder if I am not going to have to go to PC Geeks at Best Buy, and have them take the nuclear approach here.

You can always simply borrow an XP install CD (many persons actually do have such) that is the same version of XP...and either use it directly or create an updated version of such to match the system SP level.

Doing such involves no cost and also provides a CD that can be used to immediately effect repair attempts or reinstalls of XP on the computer in question.

But what, exactly, is slipstreaming, you ask?

Back when Microsoft was developing Windows 2000, the company decided to create up a more elegant way of integrating service packs and other fixes back into the core OS, so that enterprise customers could always maintain an install set of the latest version of Windows, ready to be installed at any time on new machines. In the NT days, this process was convoluted at best, and service pack installs often required users to reinstall components that had previously been installed. It just wasn't elegant, but Windows 2000 fixed all that, and in XP the slipstreaming process is largely unchanged.

For end users, slipstreaming can also be useful. For example, you can copy the installation directory from your XP CD-ROM to the hard drive, slipstream the XP SP2 files into that installation directory, and than write it back to a recordable CD, giving you a bootable copy of the XP setup disk that includes SP3 right out of the box (so to speak).

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/slipstreaming-windows-xp-to-create-bootable-cd/

Note: Users must have a valid license/key for that specific system...in order to use any slipstreamed CD.

Louis