Really annoying problem

[Lusty_Muffins]

See attached image.

It happens a minute or two after booting up and it disables the Windows Audio service. All I have to do to recover it is manually restart the service and it doens't bother me again until next boot but it's really freakin' annoying. Funny thing is that a format on my Windows drive didn't fix it.

One thing that did prevent it from happening is hooking my PC into my router and/or having a software firewall in place.

[Modest Genius]

care to provide those files for us?

which version of windows are you running? SP2? whats your sound card?

[Rob_F]

On first glance the problem appears likely to have been caused by a bad audio driver, file corruption, or malware hooking your Windows Audio service and causing it to crash. However, given the tidbit about the router issue, that also introduces a significant likelihood that compromised computers elsewhere on the Internet are using a remote exploit against your computer that is causing the Windows Audio service to crash.

If the problem is remedied by disconnecting it from the Internet, that would suggest a remote exploit is being executed against your PC and may be killing your Windows Audio service. A general policy all should follow: keep any and all Windows computers behind a firewall, be it in the form of a hardware router or at the very least a software package such as ZoneAlarm. Often when Microsoft "fixes" remote exploits, it still kills the "fixed" process, however the threat of arbitrary code is mitigated by a change in the software. I assume they're probably shoving code in to catch that condition when it happens, and kill the process to prevent code execution. That kind of bandaid, crappy programming is exactly what I'd expect from Microsoft.

Also, don't rely on Windows Firewall to protect you as it seems to leave all Windows services unblocked unless you specifically put port-based rules in it.