Had same problem on my pc. I had uninstalled WMP and IE 8 from the outset and installed Firefox and VLC, but everytime I opened a image file in Windows Image Viewer, pc crashed with com surrogate error and even when I went to Task Manager to kill the process "dllhost.exe" the process would not shut down. And since I had not installed Nero or any other codecs, I was a bit baffled.
I have now installed Ifranview and use that instead of Windows Image Viewer.
I am running Kaspersky 2011, which is causing this fault. A quick check on Kaspersky forums state that the hotfix is in Beta testing at the moment.
Maybe one day, all things being fair, software manufacturers will carry out proper testing before releasing their software. OPPPS!!! a squadron of flying pigs just past overhead.
But hey let's be fair, I was using AVG Pro, and that was constantly hogging the CPU, which made trying to work on computer impossible; and Symantec just kept switching itself off and the only way I could get it back on was to uninstall it and re-install.
