Task Scheduler always crashes when I try to load it. Help.

[pengo]

Original media, not modified.

I thought it was .NET too so I install 3.5 and problem still occurs.

I did set some services to manual (not disabled, just automatic to manual), only ones that this http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html guide said were corporate or not required.

I'll start all services and see how I go, as I can't recall which specifc services I disabled

Do you know which services I should look at starting if they aren't already started?

Update: well I started all services, problem persists. What I do notice is that I don't seeem to have an Event log service listed which is odd. Or is this not listed in vista under services?

Edited August 13, 2008 by pengo

[CoffeeFiend]

Looks like you're using a x64 version of Windows, so one needs the 64 bit version of Process Explorer to open that log file, and I'm running a non-x64 OS. Sorry...

[cluberti]

Well, I looked at it - there's definitely something very wrong with your box with regards to .net. I opened the task manager on 3 different x64 Vista SP1 systems, and get very different results - specifically, after loading the fonts and supporting .dll files for mmc.exe, your machine goes directly into attempting to open Microsoft.ManagementConsole.dll and querying the inprocserver for propsys.dll - my 3 machines instead load the GUI controls for displaying the window.

Since your box does NOT ever go into this code, and propsys.dll is the properties hook dll file, I'd say you have something installed on your machine that's loaded probably as a shell extension that's causing the issue, at least from what I can gather without debugging (procmon isn't the greatest when the failure happens under-the-covers). Knowing that you're going directly into propsys.dll hook code, and we're doing shell extension and drive extension CLSID lookups, I'd say you've installed *something* that is causing mmc.exe to trampoline into code that causes a crash.

What exactly is installed on this machine, and please tell me you didn't do anything like delete the SXS cache... .

[pengo]

Could CCleaner have done some damage when it did a clean and/or registry clean? What about FreeAVG? I noticed AVG caused spybot to slow right down and not be able to immunize the system when its residentshield it active. That said, the problem still occurs with the resident shield enabled.

I really have not installed much.

FreeAVG

Firefox v3

Sun Java

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Flash player

Ffdshow

VLC

Quicktime

Utorrent

Spybot

Windows Live Messenger

Gmail Notifier

UltimateDefrag

VirtualBox

WinRAR

Xchat2

I uninstalled UltimateDefrag, CCleaner, FreeAVG, Spybot. Problem still occurs.

Edited August 13, 2008 by pengo

[Mr Snrub]

If you run mmc.exe itself, does it launch okay?

If so, does the error get displayed if you:

- click on File / Add or Remove Snap-in

- scroll down to Task Scheduler and double-click it

- click OK with "Local Computer" selected

- click OK

Are there any other MMC views that fail with a similar error?

[Mr Snrub]

I'm not a fan of "tweaking guides" as Windows is used in different ways by different people and it's very difficult for users to determine what services they don't need - either right now, or in the future after installing WhizzBang Application X v3.0 which mysteriously fails to install or run for no apparent reason.

I've had a look at the ProcMon log but... ew... managed code :s Not my speciality.

I think the exception handler kicks in after the font substitutes have been enumerated but I can't make a whole lot of sense as ProcMon only records I/O and this could be a failing in inter-process communication...

This is event 396156, where it looks like the exception handler is getting ready to throw:

0	 fltmgr.sys			FltpPerformPreCallbacks+0x28a
1	 fltmgr.sys			FltpPassThroughFastIo+0x6a
2	 fltmgr.sys			FltpFastIoQueryOpen+0xef
3	 ntoskrnl.exe		  IopParseDevice+0xb85
4	 ntoskrnl.exe		  ObpLookupObjectName+0x5eb
5	 ntoskrnl.exe		  ObOpenObjectByName+0x2f4
6	 ntoskrnl.exe		  NtQueryAttributesFile+0x134
7	 ntoskrnl.exe		  KiSystemServiceCopyEnd+0x13
8	 ntdll.dll			 NtQueryAttributesFile+0xa
9	 ntdll.dll			 RtlDoesFileExists_UstrEx+0xad
10	ntdll.dll			 LdrpSearchPath+0xbd
11	ntdll.dll			 LdrpCheckForLoadedDll+0x1e3
12	ntdll.dll			 LdrpLoadDll+0x162	0x77895af2
13	ntdll.dll			 LdrLoadDll+0x136	0x77895836
14	kernel32.dll		  LoadLibraryExW+0x15e
15	mscorwks.dll		  Thread::UserSleep+0x139
16	mscorwks.dll		  CLRLoadLibraryEx+0xb6
17	mscorwks.dll		  DoPreloadLibraryThrowing+0x152
18	mscorwks.dll		  CorDelayLoadHook+0x1e
19	mscorwks.dll		  _delayLoadHelper2+0x1e3
20	mscorwks.dll		  _tailMerge_VERSION_dll+0x3f
21	mscorwks.dll		  GetFileVersionInfoSizeW_NoThrow+0x5c
22	mscorwks.dll		  DwGetAssemblyVersion+0x6f
23	mscorwks.dll		  GetManagedBucketParametersForIp+0xf5
24	mscorwks.dll		  GetBucketParametersForManagedException+0x3f
25	mscorwks.dll		  Thread::ReturnToContext+0x356
26	mscorwks.dll		  GetResourceStringFromManaged+0x1f0
27	mscorwks.dll		  GetResourceFromDefault+0x139
28	mscorlib.ni.dll	   mscorlib.ni.dll+0x34c332
29	mscorwks.dll		  CallDescrWorker+0x82
30	mscorwks.dll		  CallDescrWorkerWithHandler+0xe5
31	mscorwks.dll		  MethodDesc::CallDescr+0x306
32	mscorwks.dll		  InvokeUtil::CreateTargetExcept+0x1da
33	mscorwks.dll		  `string'+0xa044c
34	mscorwks.dll		  RuntimeMethodHandle::SerializationInvoke+0x221
35	mscorlib.ni.dll	   mscorlib.ni.dll+0x2e744d
36	mscorlib.ni.dll	   mscorlib.ni.dll+0x2dc3a0
37	mscorlib.ni.dll	   mscorlib.ni.dll+0x2dc4e6
38	mscorlib.ni.dll	   mscorlib.ni.dll+0x2dc723
39	mscorlib.ni.dll	   mscorlib.ni.dll+0x19cd0b
40	mscorlib.ni.dll	   mscorlib.ni.dll+0x1aca66
41	mscorlib.ni.dll	   mscorlib.ni.dll+0x28f729
42	mscorlib.ni.dll	   mscorlib.ni.dll+0x28fe1b
43	mscorlib.ni.dll	   mscorlib.ni.dll+0x2904f3
44	mscorlib.ni.dll	   mscorlib.ni.dll+0x28e6dc
45	mscorlib.ni.dll	   mscorlib.ni.dll+0x28e75d
46	System.ni.dll		 System.ni.dll+0x2d62e5
47	System.ni.dll		 System.ni.dll+0x2d61e6
48	System.ni.dll		 System.ni.dll+0x2d64a0
49	MIGUIControls.ni.dll  MIGUIControls.ni.dll+0xe16c2
50	MIGUIControls.ni.dll  MIGUIControls.ni.dll+0xe1eda
51	MIGUIControls.ni.dll  MIGUIControls.ni.dll+0xe2ca2
52	TaskScheduler.ni.dll  TaskScheduler.ni.dll+0x6ba7

Did you make any changes to COM+ or DCOM at all?

Edited stack from event 396395 - not sure if "RealCOMPlusThrow" is a possible cause or simply a symptom:

63	kernel32.dll	 RaiseException+0x39
64	mscorwks.dll	 RaiseTheExceptionInternalOnly
65	mscorwks.dll	 RaiseTheException+0x57
66	mscorwks.dll	 BStrFromString+0x66
67	mscorwks.dll	 RealCOMPlusThrow+0x35
68	mscorwks.dll	 RealCOMPlusThrow+0xb
69	mscorwks.dll	 `string'+0xa2724
70	mscorwks.dll	 CrossDomainChannel::ExecuteCrossDomainCall+0x59
71	mscorwks.dll	 CrossDomainChannel::CheckCrossDomainCall+0x100
72	mscorwks.dll	 CTPMethodTable::OnCall+0xd4
73	mscorwks.dll	 TransparentProxyStub_CrossContext+0x64
74	MMCEx.ni.dll	 MMCEx.ni.dll+0x3a509
75	mscorlib.ni.dll  mscorlib.ni.dll+0xa9710
76	mscorlib.ni.dll  mscorlib.ni.dll+0xeeacf

[pengo]

mmc loads with no snap-ins loaded ok, as soon as I try and add task scheduler it crashes. I don't get as far as to select local computer.

The only changes I've made are what I have said previously. No changes to c COM+ or DCOM.

FYI - I installed a 30day eval copy of Vista 64bit Ultimate in a VM on my copy of Vista64 Home Premium and the eval copy running Ultimate runs Task Scheduler and Event Viewer without issue.

Time for a reinstall I think.

Edited August 14, 2008 by pengo

[cluberti]

At this point, yes, I'd say so. It would take a quite thorough debug of your running box to figure out where the exception is firing (this looks like OLE code running in .NET, meaning we are indeed doing inter-process communication in this procmon and something's misconfigured or something installed is getting it's mitts on the communication and screwing it up.

If you don't mind backing up your data and reinstalling clean, that will be far easier (and quicker) than tracking this down.