com surrogate has stopped working

I'm getting a com surrogate has stopped working message constantly, suddenly out of the blue today.

I do not have Nero
I uninstalled VLC

I upgraded (today) latest Vista Codec package + 64 bit components which I installed 3 days ago and never had an issue. I just started getting the error message today an hour ago out of the blue and I didn't even modify anything on the system nor install any software for a few days.

I have Vista Ultimate 64bit with SP1 Refresh 2 (as of 3-4 days ago).

I rebooted after uninstalling Divx, VLC and then installed the latest Vista codec pack. Still getting the same error message.

Hi Chad,

This may help you.

Fix for COM Surrogate Has Stopped Working Error in Vista :: the How-To Geek

Shawn

I saw that already but I think its unreasonable I have to make any of those tweaks when my system was working just fine originally.

I get this if I do the DEP tweak.

Chad,

I'm sorry. I missed the fact that you are running the 64 bit Vista.

As you discovered you cannot change DEP for 64 bit applications individually like that. You can disable DEP though. This will show you how. Hopefully, that will solve your problem for you.

DEP - Enable or Disable

Shawn

Thanks, but apparently its a bad idea to disable DEP if I'm not mistaken.

DEP is used to help protect memory from being improperly accessed. Usually by malware or incompatible programs. If you have adequate protection (see link), you will be fine. Otherwise it can be a bad idea to disable it.

Do you have any possible idea what may have caused this to suddenly happen yesterday out of the blue? To clarify:

- no nero ever installed
- uninstalled divx
- reinstalled / upgrade vista codec pack

It's usually caused by a bad multimedia codec. This will show you all the installed ones on your computer to help determine which one may be the cause.

MMCompView v1.10 - View installed Codec and ActiveX filters and enable / disable them