RUNDLL32.EXE and SK99 Installation pproblem

[AndyCB]

On XP (Dell laptop, with XP SP1 installed), the existence of RUNDLL32.EXE seems to explain why SK99 won't install (from cd or the downloaded file) or start-up when it is installed.

As soon as I cancel RUNDLL32.EXE (with Task Manager), then SK 99 installs and runs excellently.

My questions are :-
a) Is is necessary for RUNDLL32 to be running the whole time?
(I can't see that stopping it disrupts any other programme.)
and...
b) If RUNDLL32 is not essential; how do I stop it starting up when XP boots up?

[It is a bit of hassle to open Task Manager and stop RUNDLL32 everytime I want to use SK99 !]

Thanks for a great forum. Hope I've done this properly... as a newbie. Very Best Wishes.

 

[garybritt]

There are a number of things you could try. One would be go with SK98, which doesn't have this problem and unlike 99 is Y2k compliant. 2. You could open sk99 and then leave it running all the time. 3. You could try moving the rundll32.exe file out of the system directory and put it somewhere else on your path or somewhere not on your path and then move it back. Of course this is assuming you can get away with this without screwing up XP. 4. There are probably some script program or some kill app program that you could google search for that could be used in your startup folder to run when xp loads and kill rundll32.exe out of memory sort of automatically.

If all XP installs keep rundll32.exe in memory all the time (I don't know if this is true) then it probably does so merely to try and speed up the bloated XP's ability to launch dll files. As you've already experience if its killed out of memory it doesn't appear to hurt anything. The next program needing it to launch a dll file will be able to I just like prior versions of windows, I imagine.

Cheers,

Gary

 

[AndyCB]

Gary,

Many thanks for your reply. I'm a bit nervous about mucking around with RUNDLL32: that old fear of turning an irritation into a crisis!

I've had a bit of a google, and the following site tells me how to find out what RUNDLL32 is up to: but I can't make 'Tasklist' work.

http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/rundll32.htm

Fear I'm too much of an amateur for this stuff....

I'll keep researching! Thanks again - Andy

 

[garybritt]

Interesting Post.

I don't know what you mean by you can't find tasklist, but it is a download click on the web page you cited in your message.

Good Luck,

Gary

 

[AndyCB]

Gary - Thanks for your note.

Stupid me: I hadn't put tasklist.exe in C: root so it wasn't running. Having done that now, and it works fine. rundll32.txt tells me the following:-

RUNDLL32.EXE 164 ntdll.dll, kernel32.dll, msvcrt.dll,
GDI32.dll, USER32.dll, ADVAPI32.dll,
RPCRT4.dll, IMAGEHLP.dll, bridge.dll,
ole32.dll, OLEAUT32.dll, WININET.dll,
CRYPT32.dll, MSASN1.dll, SHLWAPI.dll,
comctl32.dll, SynTPFcs.dll, VERSION.dll

I have no idea what to make of the above. It seems rundll32.exe is doing something useful to justify itself, but I don't understand what!

I wish there was something that would tell SK99 to ignore rundll32.exe and just start-up nicely..... ?

Fear this stuff is beyond me really....

Thanks again - Andy

 

[garybritt]

Given your level of computer expertise, I would search for a utility that can kill a process when executed. Then you create a shortcut for that utility and put it in your startup folder. Then the shortcut would be something similar to:

[drive]:\[path]\[nameofkillprogram.exe] rundll32.exe

If the kill program is a console cmd program and not a gui windows program the shortcut would be to a cmd (batch) file that executes the command to kill the rundll32.exe process.

Try searching your own windows help for info on any of the terms above, as well as a google search.

Gary

 

[AndyCB]

Thanks again Gary: any idea of the names of process-kill utilities?

I tried shifting rundll32.exe out of the C:\I386 and \system32 folders, and the machine didn't like it at all. It gave me various rude messages on boot-up. I don't think that's the way to go.


Best - Andy

 

[james33]

Dear Andy and Gary,
+ anyone else reading this or any thread in this forum.

Please see the following as it will be a problem for Sidekick99 users!

FAQ807-5231

for a special news update on Sidekick99
Regards
Jim