Photoshop CS tryout leaves 2 rundll32 loaded upon exiting

M
Posted By
mhbailey
Jan 11, 2004
Views
342
Replies
6
Status
Closed
I’m a registered user of PS from version 5.0 up through 7.01.

After installing and using Photoshop CS tryout on a W2k system, 512 meg Ram, 1 gig processor, Norton AV & Zone Alarm Pro also loaded, scratch file on a 80 gig hard drive with about 40 gig free, Photoshop usage set at 60%, I noticed that Photoshop CS tryout consistently leaves behind two rundll32 processes that consume between 25 and 30 meg of memory. These two processes can only be removed by rebooting. If I kill one of the processes, the remaining one will immediately start yet another (2nd) one.

Have others experienced this problem? Is it just part of the "tryout" software monitoring usage? Would I find a similar situation with a registered/activiated version of Photoshop CS?

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JJ
Jerry_Jensen
Jan 12, 2004
They probably are part of the installed Adobe "civic duty" monitor that calls the SPCA if you don’t feed your pets twice a day (that’s why two processes are running).
M
mhbailey
Jan 12, 2004
I’m very good about feeding my pets twice a day, so no worry there.

However, does anyone have any knowledge or experience with these two processes and why they are left running after exiting Photoshop CS Tryout?
DM
dave_milbut
Jan 12, 2004
rundll32 is the program the operating system uses to start other programs. adobe licence manager uses 2 ~*.tmp files during it’s operation but they dissapear after photoshop exits. i don’t think the 2 rundll32s are related.

you might check by booting in safe mode or disabling all your startup stuff with msconfig and runnning ps to see what’s happening.

dave
M
mhbailey
Jan 12, 2004
Does the license manager always have these 2~*.tmp files loaded when CS is running? Or is this just with the Tryout version? Seems like a really huge system hit (25-30 meg).

However, thanks for the suggestion, but the two rundll32 (yes, I know rundll32 is used to launch DLLS, etc.) are probably related to the 2 ~*.tmp you mention. This behavor only happens with Photoshop CS. Bringing up the task manager before loading CS shows that they are used/loaded as soon as Photoshop CS Tryout initializes and are not unloaded when CS exits.

My startup is very clean. Only NAV (popproxy & autoprotect) and ZoneAlarm (with it’s VSMON). I even keep the number of services running pretty small, disabling or setting to manual any that are not specifically needed to run W2K.

In other thread(s), it’s mentioned that CS tries to communicate with itself/whatever via localhost. I’ve set ZoneAlarm to not allow any "internet" activity for apps unless I specifically grant permission, which I did not grant CS. I tried allowing it, but the condition (25-30 meg of Ram not released; the two rundll32 still loaded, hence whatever they’ve launched are still loaded.

And it’s not a Verisign certificate issue (yet another thread), as I updated my Verisign root certificate when I saw that could be an issue.
DM
dave_milbut
Jan 12, 2004
Does the license manager always have these 2~*.tmp files loaded when CS is running? Or is this just with the Tryout version?

yes, always running while cs is up.

Seems like a really huge system hit (25-30 meg).

yes.

maybe the rundll32’s are the way it is in the tryout version. i don’t see it in the regular version. remember the tryout is also running the trial’s time limiting software too. (vbox)
M
mhbailey
Jan 12, 2004
Dave, thanks for the info about this not happening with the regular version of Photoshop CS. I did notice the vbox dll as a running process, too.

If this leave-stuff-behind feature is only part of the tryout version, then it’s nothing to worry about. I just didn’t want to get hooked into software that loaded and kept loaded 25-30 meg of whatever even after it wasn’t running.

As it is, there seems to be some kind of huge memory/resource leak with the tryout version. Even if I kill the two processes via a command file (the only way I found to keep the remaining one from reloading another one) that PS CS Tryout loads, there’s still about 20 to 25 meg of memory that is never released after exiting the Tryout version.

Hopefully this type of memory/resource leak does not occur with the regular version of Photoshop CS. I went back and double-checked with Photoshop 7.01 and there only seems to be about 1-2 meg of memory that’s not released upon exiting.

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Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.

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