My client had a weird problem while viewing pictures and videos on his Windows 7 PC: It pops up with the following error message:
COM Surrogate has stopped working
The weird thing is that the error only occurred when viewing video or image files and not when viewing any other type of files. After some research, we were able to fix the problem, but had to try a few different things before it finally worked. In this post, I will describe various possible solutions, and hopefully one of them works for you.
First method – update codecs
Obviously since it was a video / image issue we thought it might be something with the currently installed set of codecs. This client was particularly fond of copying and copying files, so he had ffdshow installed and a few other codecs installed. We have manually updated all codecs to the latest versions, including ffdshow, Windows 7 Codec Pack and others. You can download the latest Windows 7 Codec Pack.
If you have DivX or Nero installed on your computer, update them to the latest versions as well. In some cases, you may need to uninstall the program and then reinstall it later.
Method 2 – Kaspersky Antivirus
There was a known issue with Kaspersky Anti-Virus that is causing this issue. If you are using Kaspersky, you need to make sure that you are updating the current Kaspersky software and not just the antivirus definitions. You can also check if it is actually causing the problem by disabling the program completely and checking if the problem goes away.
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The third method – commands
There are several commands you can try running on Windows to see if that fixes the problem. You must run them on the command line. Click Start, type cmd, then right-click and select Run as administrator. Now enter the following commands, pressing Enter after each one:
regsvr32 vbscript.dll regsvr32 jscript.dll
This will re-register multiple dlls in Windows and possibly fix the COM surrogate error. If not, keep reading!
Method 4 – Check the disk for errors
If you are only seeing this problem on a specific drive, such as an external USB device, the hard drive may have bad sectors. We recommend that you run chkdsk to make sure the drive is working properly. You can read my previous post on how to use the chkdsk utility
Method 5 – disable DEP for dllhost.exe
Another fix that has been mentioned many times is adding dllhost.exe to the list of exceptions for DEP (Data Execution Protection). You can read my previous post on how to disable DEP on Windows. At the last step of this article, click Add, and then add the following executable file on 32-bit Windows 7:
C: Windows System32 dllhost.exe
For 64-bit Windows 7, you must exclude the dllhost.exe file in the following path:
C: Windows SysWOW64 dllhost.exe
Method 6 – Display / Printer Driver
It can be a little tricky, but if you’ve recently updated the driver for your display or even some other hardware on your computer, try rolling back the driver to a previous version. This is usually more about the display driver than anything else. In some cases, updating to the latest display driver can also fix the problem, so you’ll have to play around with either updating the driver or rolling it back.
To roll back a display driver, go to Device Manager, expand Display Adapters, then right-click the display device and select Uninstall. You will see a pop-up window in which you need to check the box for Remove driver software for this device.
In the same light, you should also check your printer drivers and update all of them if updates are available.
Hopefully one of these methods will fix the COM Surrogate bug in Windows 7. If not, please leave a comment here and let us know your specifications and what you tried and we will try to help. Enjoy!
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