Issues with rundll32.exe on Win 7 Pro 64 bit

[WR3ND]

Update:

See the posts below for optional fixes and workarounds for these issues. Long story short, these issues are because of a known Windows "feature" (bug). Hopefully Microsoft fixes their ****, but I doubt it.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, guys!

Cheers.

...

I have this issue with realMyst too for some reason.

Basically, I have to start the games twice in a row so that rundll32.exe is already running when I launch them – starting these games lauches this process, as I assume they need it to run for some reason.

For some reason rundll32.exe loads up my CPU (12 threads/6 cores at 4.2GHz) doing a whole lot of noth extremely intently. Regadless, the games themselves run fine, given the above, but after I'm done playing them for the session, rundll32.exe is still running, taking up CPU crunching capacity needlessly, so I have to go into the Task Manager and end the process.

I'm fairly sure this isn't malware related as I run a very tight ship, just some kind of weird bug with Windows and these older games.

Is there any way to resolve these issues with rundll32.exe that you guys know of and are any of you having these issues as well?

Thanks.

[Bansheebutt]

I recall having this problem when, of all things, my computer didn't have internet access.

I think I pegged the issue as something to do with Windows Game Manager trying to find Title Data, ESRB rating, which it obviously couldn't do without internet.

Try disabling that particular feature.

[WR3ND]

Huh, could be something like that since I have a firewall setup to not let things "phone home" unless I specifically want them too. Will have to look into it more and see if I can get it sorted. Thanks for the tip! I'll let you guys know how it goes.

[WR3ND]

Seems to have done the trick. Thanks again! Looks like might have something to do with hasplms.exe not having internet access as it was logged on the firewall and I let it connect.

No issues starting and stopping Oblivion now and rundll32.exe isn't stuck loading up the CPU. What a weird and annoying "feature." (I'd like to tell you what I really think of it.) lol

Cheers.

...

Oh, and just in case this is relevant and someone else happens across this thread, I disabled Windows Media Center as well since I don't use it anyway.

I don't think it's related though as removing internet access from hasplms.exe resumes the issues with rundll32.exe.

[Vomit Heart]

I had this issue after hours on google i found that rundll32.exe is trying to add oblivion to Games Explorer, it try's to go online and gets blocked by your firewall then hangs.
I disabled games explorer.

[WR3ND]

Originally posted by HappyerbS:

I had this issue after hours on google i found that rundll32.exe is trying to add oblivion to Games Explorer, it try's to go online and gets blocked by your firewall then hangs.
I disabled games explorer.

I tried disabling the dll calls for it...

regsvr32 -u c:\windows\system32\gameux.dll

and

regsvr32 -u c:\windows\SysWOW64\gameux.dll

...which didn't work.

As mentioned in my previous post, rundll32.exe loading up my CPU is pivoting on whether or not hasplms.exe has internet access.

How exactly did you go about disabling Games Explorer? I'm willing to give that a try just to help troubleshoot this further in case anyone else is having the same issue as me and I'd rather not need to always be on-line to easily play some of my games incase there is an internet connection outage on my ISP or something.

...

Update:

Using native Windows functionality in the hidden Administrator account, I took user ownership and granted myself full permissions for...

C:\Windows\System32\gameux.dll
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\gameux.dll

...and correspondingly renamed the files to...

C:\Windows\System32\gameux.old (dll)
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\gameux.old (dll)

...so hasplms.exe no longer needs internet access and I don't get the issues with rundll32.exe using available CPU resources.

As others have mentioned in the thread, this is a known issue with Windows Games Explorer – regardless of whether or not you actually want to use it – that's apparently been around for several years.

I wouldn't recommend doing the above system file name changes unless you don't care to use Windows Games Explorer, which apparently downloads box art for your games that it lists and similar – I wouldn't have known, since I've never previously used it.

Hopefully Microsoft fix this issue sometime, but I have my doubts since it's been a known issue for several years now.

Hope this helps anyone else having these same issues.

Cheers.