@Neilster23:
0. Don't let a machine make you loose your mind
1. You probably use an old version of WinRAR that doesn't know *.7z files yet
2. The RyanVM update pack seems to be for integration on a XP installation disc only. Let me explain: Over here, I can choose between at least to different suppliers of update packs, which come in 2 different flavors (full and incremental/diff versions) as an easy-to-install self-extracting *.exe file. So I was googling like hell for a similar thing for the english versions of XP and all I found was the RyanVM software (of which I thought it's just the same thing :o ). Sorry, but read on, I did some more research on that:

@All
I found these single hotfixes
WindowsXP-KB921883-x86-ENU.exe (MS06040)
and probably
WindowsXP-KB894391-x86-ENU.exe

fixed the problem for most affected people. Everybody should be able to download them from the MS site:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/secu...ns/200608.mspx
The first and seemingly deciding one can be found also here:
http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows/index.html

There is a workaround to prevent your internet connection from being cut: Just drag the error message window out of sight and don't click on any button. This way you can go on trying to fix it.

Another approach to the problem is disabling certain services (which is basically no bad idea anyway) by using a simple tool like Windows Worms Doors Cleaner v1.4.1 which can be found here:
http://www.firewallleaktester.com/tools_list.htm
or here (another similar tool)
http://www.dingens.org

The reason for this new massive appearance of GHP errors is probably described here:
http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyi...c9bb52fce76370
and here:
http://www.lurhq.com/mocbot-ms06040.html
According to these, this is not a "friendly proof-of-concept" but almost all people with that problem report clean HJT logs and no antivirus software found something. If they found something, it seems to be by coincidence and there is most likely no correlation. It has some analogy to the outbreak of the "Blaster"-worm in August (!) 2003, which manifested itself by a similar error message. But little is known yet...

Remember, there are many reasons for svchost crashes and maybe your problem is not related to this issue. Only error messages like Neilster23 got

[example debug code]
EventType : BEX P1 : svchost.exe P2 : 5.1.2600.2180 P3 : 41107ed6
P4 : netapi32.dll P5 : 5.1.2600.2180 P6 : 411096ac P7 : 0000a3c0
P8 : c0000409 P9 : 00000000

point to that specific issue, but many of them appeared in the past few days.

Maybe that helps somebody now. :cheesy: Good luck!