Should I be concerned about this?

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[Charlie]

I’ve just noticed this coming up in the little white flag of the Win 7 Action Center in the Systray.  There are two more like this that happened in Nov. of 2021.  The computer seems to be running okay so should I be concerned and if so is there anything I should do?  Microsoft is not responding to the Action Center’s requests to solve the problem.  Any information about this will be greatly appreciated.  Win 7 Home Premium, 4 Gigs ram, 2TB HDD, Intel Core i3-2120 3.3 GHz CPU.

Source
Microsoft(C) Register Server

Summary
Stopped working

Date
‎12/‎16/‎2021 2:54 PM

Status
Not reported

Description
Faulting Application Path: C:\Windows\System32\regsvr32.exe

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: regsvr32.exe
Application Version: 6.1.7600.16385
Application Timestamp: 4a5bcdd6
Fault Module Name: ntdll.dll
Fault Module Version: 6.1.7601.24545
Fault Module Timestamp: 5e0eb67f
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0000000000011bd0
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 31e8
Additional Information 2: 31e8c2aa26bdf9c08e3f3e899a30278d
Additional Information 3: c3da
Additional Information 4: c3da4874bb9c858f840063bab71740a2

 

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

• This topic was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by Charlie. Reason: Added info. about computer

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…Microsoft is not responding to the Action Center’s requests to solve the problem. …

Given the age of Windows 7 and that it’s not supported by MS for personal/small business use unless you’ve subscribed to the ESU program, I’m not surprised at your finding.

Since you say that Windows 7 seems to be operating decently, it could be that the .dll file mentioned (ntdll.dll) is a bit messed up. That scenario could be what’s causing the regsvr32 app to crash.

Here’s one way to try and “straighten out” the possibly messed up .dll file:

Go to an elevated command prompt (one with administrator privileges) and type “sfc /SCANNOW” (without the quotes, of course) and sit back and wait a while. Windows will be checking all of what it considers to be your system files and will produce a summary of its findings and any actions it took when it completes its task. If the message says something to the effect of “errors found will be repaired at the next restart…”, then get a screenshot of the message and save it to a location of your preference (see the next paragraph). Now restart the computer by clicking the Start menu, clicking the arrow to the immediate right of the “Shut down” button and selecting the option labeled “Restart” or something very similar. Please DO NOT restart the computer by shutting it off and turning it back on with the power button on the computer’s case.

If you had to restart the computer: After it has finished restarting and you’ve been at the desktop for about 10-15 minutes, rerun the sfc/SCANNOW command the same way that you did above and get another screenshot of the results. Hopefully the results of this second scan say something about “no integrity violations found”.

Please respond here with the results of the one (or both) scan(s) via screenshot or a quote as you did above. Hopefully, this will take care of things for you. If not, the screenshot(s) will help with further troubleshooting efforts.

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Charlie

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Thanks, I’ll do what you described as soon as I can and hopefully get some good news I can give you.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Bob99, I have two questions before I try this.  Do I need to be connected to the Web or would it be better if I wasn’t connected?  And will I need to have my original Windows 7 install disk at the ready?  I will also be making a restore point ahead of time.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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I’m on Windows 10 Pro now, but I used to be on Win 7 Pro.

I recall having to use sfc a couple of times while I was on Win 7, and both times I had my original install disc handy but I was never prompted for it. I also remained connected to the ‘Net while doing the procedure as well.

So, it couldn’t hurt to have your original install disc handy but, if it’s for Win 7 and doesn’t include SP1, you might be out of luck if you’re prompted for it because of sfc looking for a certain version of a file that it might not find on the installation disc you have.

If sfc went out to MS servers looking for a certain file or file’s version, I never noticed but I wasn’t thinking along that line at the time either!

BTW, from what I recall, with a 500 gig HDD (5400 rpm “spinner”) that had about 70 gigs of files on it (both Windows, my installed programs, and related data), the sfc process took about 15-30 minutes. This was also on a computer with 4 gigs of RAM and an Intel Core i5-750 processor and Win 7 Pro SP1 x64. Machine was custom-built brand new in July 2010 by a local mom and pop shop. I didn’t have the need to use sfc until well after I’d installed SP1 upon its release back in “the day”.

I’d also like to point out that you do have another “option”, and that’s simply letting this error slide, since you say that your copy of Win 7 is operating normally otherwise for now. The reason I put the word “option” in quotes is because many folks (myself included) don’t consider the concept of doing nothing about the error when it’s showing up in Action Center a real option at all.  🙂

One final note here. When I said in my post above…

…(see the next paragraph)…

I meant to say “see the last paragraph” instead. My apologies if I caused any confusion.  🙁

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Charlie

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@Charlie, given that the source is Microsoft(C) Register Server, it might also be worthwhile checking if kb971033 may have snuck in behind your back? or just recently woke up from hibernation..

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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Charlie

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Microfix wrote:

@Charlie, given that the source is Microsoft(C) Register Server, it might also be worthwhile checking if kb971033 may have snuck in behind your back? or just recently woke up from hibernation..

I checked and it was not there.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Okay, I just ran it and like you said, it took about 15 minutes. Here is the screenshot:

There doesn’t seem to be any problems according to the sfc scan.  I was connected to the Net, and I just closed out the cmd screen afterwards since it didn’t find anything.  My Win 7 is SP1, so the disk is too.  I agree with you, I don’t like having unresolved problems lurking around, but I think I’ll just wait and see if anything else crops up.

This computer was built for me at a mom & pop shop too in 2012.  I was skeptical of Win 7 then but came to really like it, and have not had hardly any serious problems with it in all that time.  So I’m still using it mostly offline.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Ok, time for some heavier lifting. By that, I mean time for some folks who really know the inner workings of Windows to chime in to see what’s next. I’m guessing that an instance of DISM might be in order, but for that I’ll leave it to those more versed in it than I am. Because of the possible use of DISM, it’s a good thing that your install disc is SP1, as I’ve used DISM once in the distant past and it did ask me to insert my installation disc to see if it could find a good copy of a system file it was looking for.

I’m hoping that @b , @RetiredGeek , @bbearren , @PKCano , @SB (Susan Bradley) or one of the other MVPs here might chime in with a good suggestion for your next move.

I Googled the name of the .dll file and found several hits for sites that claimed to offer you a good version of the file to reinstall on your machine. Those are the exact types of sites to AVOID going to, since most of them tend to bundle the file you’re after with other crapware that is commonly flagged as a potentially unwanted program by many anti-crapware suites/programs.

Some hits I found also suggested trying to re-register the .dll file with Windows, but I thought that was what regsvr32 was for in the first place and that’s the app that’s actually crashing from what you’ve shown in your initial post.

It’s good to see that at least sfc didn’t find any integrity violations within your Windows system files. 😎👍

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Charlie

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Hi Charlie,

It appears that your Windows 7 installation is not on the ESU channel. Your computer reports the following versions for regsvr32.exe and ntdll.dll:

Application Name: regsvr32.exe
Application Version: 6.1.7600.16385
Fault Module Name: ntdll.dll
Fault Module Version: 6.1.7601.24545

My Windows 7 computers are updated through a couple of months ago. I always wait a month or two before installing the latest updates in order to see if others report serious issues. On my Windows 7 computers, the version of ntdll.dll is:

6.1.7601.25661

Notably, SFC did not report any integrity violations when you ran SFC. And obviously your computer isn’t generating any blue screens since I am sure that you would have mentioned that.

I think that you should simply ignore these errors since your computer seems to be working normally.

Best regards,

–GTP

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Charlie

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That’s pretty much the conclusion I’ve come to GTP.  My only concern now is that a program that I update regularly (Anti-virus, Anti-malware) might put up a fuss about these older files.  So far this isn’t the case so I’ll just wait and see.  There hasn’t been any other report from the Action Center since Dec. 16, 2021.  So I’ll hopeful.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Your AV and anti-malware programs shouldn’t have any issues with older system files. In particular, they have to be compatible with all versions of ntdll.dll since that is the operating system kernel.

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Charlie

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The computer is still running okay.  Thanks to all for the interest and info.  Marking this as resolved.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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