HP Image Zone and Printer Software causing svchost.exe error

18Dec, 2009

I have always disliked HP. Their new computers, sold under both HP and Compaq names, arrive out of box up to their eyeballs in crapware. Now I have one more reason to hate them.

In a Windows XP Pro computer, an error:

“svchost.exe: Application ERROR: the instruction at 0xXXXXXXXX referenced memory at ‘0x00000000 the memory could be read ”

Would pop up persistently when logging on or opening up “My Computer”. “My Computer”, in addition to throwing the error, would take several minutes to load, after which it would function normally.

Long story short, it was caused by an HP software suite that came with a printer. “HP Image Zone”, “HP Extended Functionality”, “HP Officejet xxxx”, after uninstalling them the error ceased to appear.

I generally recommend uninstalling that crap even when they aren’t throwing errors because they’re resource hogs. All you need to use an HP printer is the driver, everything else is a waste of resources.

~James