Host Process for Windows Services stopped working

Host Process for Windows Services stopped working and was closed.

This message appears over and over again and im at a loss.

Dell Inspiron 1721

Vista Home premium service pack 2

Desktop seems to revert to the basic color scheme when this happens.

When i click close another window opens saying to check if i have updates installed.

I go to windows update and i get error code 80072EFE

Any suggestions are most welcome thanks

Not sure on this axxxo. I done a quick look around and haven't found anything too convincing yet. I will keep trying. Maybe Gman will be able to come up with something in the mean time. Have you done anything to update or change programs recently? New hardware?

No new programs ferg or hardware.
I swapped around memory just to try and still get the same results.
Booted into safe mode with networking and the message doesnt appear but i cant even open windows update nevermind get an error code.
Just back from another startup after changing the boot settings in the system configuration (msconfig) to normal startup and the error appeared again.
Thinking im gonna get the most outta my extended warranty on this and flog it at the wall!!! Warranty doesnt cover software problems.

Ran every diagnostic available on this computer and everything passed.
I ran kasperskys TDSSkiller which found a threat and removed it. I then had to do a system repair. Restarted the modem and router and am now back up and running as normal and windows update has downloaded two important updates since.

Kaspersky TDSSkiller can be found HERE if anyone else would like to give it a try.

I had found someone else had tried this having the same problem as i had so it seemed to do the trick. It can report false positives of course, I had to ignore one myself so make sure to check anything before deleting

Glad you got it sorted mate. From the things that I had seen around, it could have been very difficult to get narrowed down as it has such broad interaction. Good job.