Weird rundll32 problem and how to save settings

Folk wrote on 5/27/2010, 4:28 PM
I've been using Movie Studio Platinum 9.0b for about three weeks. While looking at the tasks running on my system, I noticed an entry for 'rundll32' and was able to trace it back to MSP. I had just done a backup the day before and when I restored the backup the program was no longer there. Today I noticed the same program running on my system. I check the running tasks fairly frequently, so I know it wasn't there yesterday. Since I didn't have a recent backup this time, I decided to uninstall MSP and the background task disappeared. I reinstalled and it's still not there, but since it's happened twice now I've got to assume it will happen again.

First off, I would like to find out what issue in MSP is causing the 'rundll32' to appear randomly. According to the registry, it has something to do with "mixed media", like a CD with both pictures and music, for example. But try as I might, I can't find anything on my system to cause this process to launch at every boot, but that's exactly what happens until I uninstall MSP.

Secondly, I would like to know how to preserve my MSP preferences and things like custom rendering options in the event that I have to uninstall/reinstall again.

I'm running Window 7 32 bit.

TIA!

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 5/27/2010, 9:47 PM
You are seriously overthinking.

If you are surmising that there is something sinister going on, by all means uninstall VMS permanently.
Otherwise, you are welcome to learn and appreciate the possibilities this software has to offer.
Your choice, entirely.
Birk Binnard wrote on 5/27/2010, 10:23 PM
music vid is correct.

rundll32.dll is part of Windows (and has been for a long time.) It is NOT part of Vegas or any other application. It is designed to let calling programs use it to execute code in application dll files as though it were an exe file. The objective here is to reduce the number of exe files shipped with applications and to stop people from launching software they shouldn't.

Vegas saves its setting when you close the program normally. If it crashes or is otherwise aborted any setting changes made during the current session are not saved.
Folk wrote on 5/28/2010, 5:41 AM
I guess I didn't explain myself very well.

I don't think something sinister is going on... I think something is broken.

Some period of time after installing MSP, I will get a 'rundll32' task on my system that persists between boots. IOW, it's always there. I don't think it's anything sinister, I think it's a bug. It doesn't show up immediately after installing MSP, but it appears at some point while using MSP and then never goes away, even when I'm not using MSP. Once it appears, it loads every time I start my PC.

I know it's caused by MSP and I know that uninstalling MSP causes it to go away. So, I'm just trying to figure out what setting or action in MSP causes this task to appear and what I can do to keep it from launching every time I start my PC.
Folk wrote on 5/28/2010, 6:29 AM
Birk wrote:

rundll32.dll is part of Windows (and has been for a long time.) It is NOT part of Vegas or any other application. It is designed to let calling programs use it to execute code in application dll files as though it were an exe file. The objective here is to reduce the number of exe files shipped with applications and to stop people from launching software they shouldn't.

Vegas saves its setting when you close the program normally. If it crashes or is otherwise aborted any setting changes made during the current session are not saved.

**********************************************************************

I understand rundll32 is a Windows function and it's not part of MSP, but MSP is invoking it.

My question on saving settings is "how do you save them between installs?" IOW, if I want to move to a different PC, how do I save the settings so I don't have to reconfigure all the MSP settings?

BTW, I figured out how to prevent that rundll32 task from constantly running in the background. I traced the problem to the following registry key that is inserted by MSP:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{995C996E-D918-4a8c-A302-45719A6F4EA7}\LocalServer32

This key has something to do with 'mixed media". Anyway, I deleted the key and the problem is solved.

I would still like to know how to preserve my MSP settings between installs though.