rundll32.exe being an arse

Is there any reason why atempting to uninstall a program would cause rundll32.exe to take up 100% CPU?

I tried to uninstall Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare but nothing happens other than rundll32.exe loading up and whoring my CPU and even after letting it sit for 20mins no change, now thats not normal is it?

After a brief bit of googling some places say it could be something hinky but my antivirus and antispyware say its fine and its not atemping to acess the net at all.

Its beyond me, but thats not saying much.

 

A stupid suggestion. Try installing it, even with it already installed (replace files), and then try to uninstall. Could be a corrupted uninstall file.

 

Tried that, tried installing and updating with lastest patch, still all i get is rundll32 acting weird.

I even tried hitting the uninstall a few times, but all that did was cause multiple instances of rundll32 to apear and all fight for as much CPU as they could get.

Even tried uninstalling from Add and Remove Programs, the window just locks up and rundll32 does its thing again.

 

Ok now i know rundll32 is out to get me, i cant seem to uninstall anything...

I've tried to uninstall half the things on my Add and Remove Programs and none of them will, i click, nothing happens, just rundll32 loads and takes 100% CPU.

This is defiantly hinky behaviour hinkyest hinkyness. Any chance its one of those 'problems' that i've heard mentioned that pop up after uninstalling Norton, i did that earlier that day.

 

go to www.trend.com
Run their free online scanner, might find something your comp didnt find.
Also, google regscrub and download it. Also download ccleaner google it as well.
You might get some weird files removed from your comp.
Check the folder for file remnants etc. Check your startup for odd things as well. I dont know, haha...im throwing ideas into the wind.

 

I have the same problem with 2 computers- Ghost Recon and Hitman BM- it may be a problem with installer (InstalShield I guess) or sth very different- I suspect latest ZoneAlarm 6.5 may be involved (do not instal it btw- it doesn't even deserve to be a "beta") or Symantec Antivirus 10.1 (recently upgraded from 10.0) Running installer again from DVD didn't help either as it tried to run rundll32 too.

 

Re-ran Nod32, nothing came up.
Re-ran Adware, nothing came up.
Ran CCleaner, both scans found a long list, mostly looked like Norton related stuff, mostly 'missing dlls' and 'xcom thingys' fixed the lot.
Removed leftover folders.
Ran Trend, suprisingly found a 'greyware' and removed it. (Strangly too Trends scan made Nod32 think a keylogger apeared in firefox)
Ran Regscrub, found a few 'no subkeys for this key' which it fixed.

I also had that GRAW install bug thing, was easy to fix with the installsheild directory fix. If this was just GRAW i'd blame it entirely, but thing is everything gone c*ckeyed.

The only things that changed that day was uninstalling Norton internet security and system works and installing Nod32 and ZoneAlarm.

 

I'm sure you've already tried this, but just to cover the bases, have you rebooted?

rundll32.exe is just a shell program that loads DLLs and calls a standard entry point. Control panels also use it and of course, spyware/viruses can also exploit it. You're problem is most likely related to the install/uninstall scripts that its trying to invoke. There's probably some sort of lock that they're trying to acquire. A reboot often clears these problems up.

If a reboot doesn't work, you might need the help of some sort of registry/system validator like norton utilities.

 

I don't like Norton, personally. I prefer AVG or Avast. Alternatively, you may want to get the rundll32 from a friends' installation of XP and copy it in yours.

 

I think i may have worked out my problem.
As far as i can tell all of the programs that wont uninstall, cant uninstall because their missing their uninstall executables.

Looking through my start menu all the afflicted programs' uninstall have lost their icon and reverted to the default exe icon, and nowhere in their directorys are their uninstall files.

I'm blaming Norton for taking my uninstall exe's with it, bloody Norton.