# What the hell is rundll32.exe and what did i do to piss it off? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 7, 2000, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-rundll32-exe-and-what-did-i-do-to-piss-it-off/32343 "2000-09-07T09:02:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Gatsby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@Gatsby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatsby)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-rundll32-exe-and-what-did-i-do-to-piss-it-off/32343/1 "2000-09-07T09:02:38Z")
So, that’s the story. Last night I was loading a flash animation and Windows 2000 died. Machine locked up. I cold booted and since then, rundll32.exe loads at startup and takes up 100% of the CPU cycles until I turn it off with task manager. If I leave it on and try to restart, Win2K says it can’t close rundll32.exe until i close it manually. I found [this](http://www.computing.net/windows2000/wwwboard/forum/4275.html), (number one hit 100% accurate, god bless google’s little heart) but I can’t even find “runservice” in a regedit search. Anyone? Bueller? Ferris? ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-rundll32-exe-and-what-did-i-do-to-piss-it-off/32343/2 "2000-09-07T09:14:26Z")
I seem to have pissed of this file as well. First I thought, “Huh? What’s an 80’s Rap Band doing in my 'puter? Oh, runDLL…”. With me, it happens when I rightclick my mouse on my desktop to change the settings. I click properties, and presto: “Rundll has caused and illegal action and will be aborted”. However, the computer seems to run fine even after that. What gives? ---
**Author:** ![micilin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8c91f0/32.png) [@micilin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/micilin)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-rundll32-exe-and-what-did-i-do-to-piss-it-off/32343/3 "2000-09-07T11:32:02Z")
Rundll is used by Control Panels, so it looks like a Control Panel is trying to start. The place to look for most Microsoft bug answers is [http://www.microsoft.com/technet](http://www.microsoft.com/technet) The Search interface is crap, but it’s saved my job a couple of times. Personally I’d boot into safe mode and have a poke around in the registry for the ‘Run’ and ‘Runonce’ keys, see if there’s anything peculiar/unusual, also if you installed something just before this happened I’d remove it. And Clogboy, if you’ve got win95/98/2000 try removing the graphics card from the ‘Display adapters’ section in Device manager in the ‘System’ Control Panel and then rebooting to allow the computer to rediscover your graphics card. Usually does the trick. ---
**Author:** ![micilin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8c91f0/32.png) [@micilin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/micilin)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-rundll32-exe-and-what-did-i-do-to-piss-it-off/32343/4 "2000-09-07T11:34:05Z")
And before I forget. Coldfire: [http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q138/8/35.asp](http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q138/8/35.asp) ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-rundll32-exe-and-what-did-i-do-to-piss-it-off/32343/5 "2000-09-07T11:36:04Z")
Thanks, Mic! I’ll try it at home tonight. If this works, you’ve just earned yourself a fresh Guinness, to be consumed in Dublin, next month 😛 ---
**Author:** ![London\_Calling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@London\_Calling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/London_Calling)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-rundll32-exe-and-what-did-i-do-to-piss-it-off/32343/6 "2000-09-07T11:38:31Z")
You guys want to form a club ? I’ve posted a couple of questions about DLL - it completely wrote me off during the Euro Championships and still won’t go away completely. Haven’t got my head around it so I can’t help. Just offering sympathy. As far as I know, you just try different things and hope it fixes itself. It really is a pain. ---
**Author:** ![bdgr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a87d85/32.png) [@bdgr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bdgr)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-rundll32-exe-and-what-did-i-do-to-piss-it-off/32343/7 "2000-09-07T12:53:44Z")
Win2k’s repair feature actually works, not like NT 4.0. IF you get errors like this, I would boot off the cd and run the automatic repair. Usually works. ---
**Author:** ![brachyrhynchos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brachyrhynchos/32/376_2.png) [@brachyrhynchos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brachyrhynchos)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2000, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-rundll32-exe-and-what-did-i-do-to-piss-it-off/32343/8 "2000-09-07T15:35:31Z")
If you’re running windows 98, you can go to START, RUN, and run msconfig (type msconfig and hit return), then choose selective startup, and hit the start tab. Turn off LoadPowerProfile. This uses rundll32.exe. Don’t know if msconfig is available for win2000.