That is interesting. I have that driver installed on both my computers but it wasn't an update. For my home Laptop it was on there before I bought it and for my work PC I think it was one of the drivers that I installed as part of setting the system up. I searched through "windows updates" and didn't find any updates that have been done for that driver. What graphics driver did you take instead?
if I was to uninstall that, I feel I need some kind of alternative...
I rolled back the driver.
The version that was originally on the pc and that I rolled back to was :-
version 8.15.10.2509 dd 31/08/11
Not sure what the updated version was, as I have now removed it.
I see that in the optional updates on MS Update its (the upgraded version) available for download again - I'm not going to select it this time !!!
I'm not sure what benefits the new version offered - I didn't notice anything different.
Hmm ok. I could possibly dig out older versions of the driver (I haven't updated the driver from the point of installation so i would have to dig through Intels website and download an older driver. I think for now, downloading a different photo viewer (e.g. Picasa) is easier... However, it is good have narrowed down to know what the error might be.
Thanks for the help!
To all: I'm having the same issue on 3 different laptops all with ssd drives, this is an ssd issue, I hold a MCITP certification and have been working directly with Microsoft on this issue the past few days. I will post results and possible fixes when I have more info, but just wanted you all to stop the marry go round of troubleshooting, drivers, re-installs fresh installsm etc are not going to fix this problem only getting rid of the ssd. We have not been able to narrow it down to a specific brand of ssd's either, two of my drives are crucial the other is Intel. It takes time to convince MS the problem is on their end.
Both my desktop and my laptop have the problem.
Desktop has SSD
Laptop has NO SSD !!!
Just to let you know...
My PC does NOT have a SSD. The problem was caused by the INTEL driver downloaded as an optional update from Windows Update. I can turn the problem on/off by installing/rolling back the said driver. The only time the problem appears is when using MS picture/fax viewer.
Seems there maybe more than one cause to this problem
:)
I am not convinced it is a Windows problem. I have 5 SSDs (3 Crucial M4s, an Intel X-25M, and a Vertex2) installed on 3 computers and use Windows photo viewer to view pictures. I have never had that error or any error on any of my systems. Besides that, if it were a Windows problem associated with SSDs, then everyone who has Windows and an SSD would be having the same error messages. That is not the case. I would be more inclined to think it may be an issue with conflicting drivers from some other software or drivers you have installed. If I am correct, you seem to believe there is some compatibility issue between the Windows OS and SSDs. If that is a correct assumption on my part, why not clone your OS from the SSD to an non SSD drive and see if the problem persists. If it does, you may try a clean install with updates and without adding any other programs, use the photo viewer to test it out. Then slowly install one program at a time, testing after each install until you begin to experience the problem. That may tell you where the problem lies.
I agree with the steps that essenbe laid out to determine the culprit.
I am in agreement that it is likely not a Windows/SSD combination causing the problem given that it happens with HDDs and there are not more reports regarding this problem for people with SSDs.
If you want to find the true underlying problem, follow the excellent advice in essenbe's post.
i do, this is my folder error, problem like "com surrogate"
Elevated Command Prompt
TL;DR: My COM Surrogate was related to Acronis True Image 2013 and I fixed it. Even if Acronis is not causing your COM Surrogate error, this method may still help you diagnose the root cause of your error.
Hi,
I registered to these forums simply to post. I am considering it my good deed for the day. I found a solution to my specific issue with the COM Surrogate error on a fresh install of Windows 7 64 bit after about 2 days of having issues.
As many people with this issue, all my Googling kept leading me to these forums. Many people in this thread (and others in other forums) had great ideas. I tried the following, but none of them fixed my COM Surrogate error:
-Re-registering dll libraries via command line
-Forcing win7 to show icons vs thumbnails
-Turning on DEP for only dllhost.exe (COM Surrogate)
-Uninstalling Adobe Photoshop CS2
-I do not use Nero
-Clean booting and not running any non-system programs
-Updating chipset, motherboard, and audio/video drivers.
-I don't have any additional codec packs installed.
-Running SFC /SCANNOW
My issue wasn't only related to viewing photos, but nearly anything which used windows explorer windows. Even logging into windows threw the error.
My specific error mentioned DLLHOST.exe and rpcrt4.dll as the culprits, but that was not enough info determine the root cause
I had a breakthrough when i came across the following sites:
'COM Surrogate has stopped working' - Microsoft Community
In the above link, in Andre.Ziegler's Sept 2010 post he provides a link to a .reg file which when added to your registry spits out a .dmp file of the application crash to C:\localdumps. You can easily remove the registry key when you done as it only adds a new key, not del/mod existing ones.
The next time I got the COM Surrogate error, sure enough i had a .dmp file in C:\localdumps. Now what to do with the dump?
How to open DMP files in Windows 7?
From this site I obtained the Microsoft debugging software. Follow the instructions closely as you do not need to install the entire program, only the debugging portion. Set up/configure the program as the site says and then load your .dmp file. Then run the !analyze -v command to get more detailed info from the dump. My results weren't as clear as the example on the website, but at the bottom of the analysis it referrred to a new file besides DLLHOST.exe and rpcrt4.dll: syncagentsrv.exe
After some googleing syncagentsrv.exe is a part of Acronis True Image 2013. It makes sense this was causing errors as this version of Acronis gets very embedded into windows. Once I googled 'Win7 COM Surrogate and syncagentsrv.exe' I then found many sites detailing the problem.
Basically my COM error originated when I installed Acronis True Image, but disabled it's 'Acronis Sync Agent service'. I had disabled it because I considered it junk I didn't want running on my system since I only use Acronis to create HD Images a couple times a year. Once I realized this was the cause, as soon as I started the service and switch it back to Automatic as the boot time, my error went away instantly, even without a reboot. (I could probably also set it to 'manual' as well)
So I guess there can be lots of potential causes for this error.
I hope this helps at least one other person out there struggling with this BS error.
TL;DR: My COM Surrogate was related to Acronis True Image 2013 and I fixed it. Even if Acronis is not causing your COM Surrogate error, this method may still help you diagnose the root cause of your error.
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