what's wmiexe.exe in Win98 SE ??

[arbymo]

Just installed Win98 SE couple days ago ..I noticed that after it loads the desktop and all my systray icons and programs .. the mouse is normal .. however it gets the busy mouse icon again and then back to normal mouse icon (which means it was loading somethin).. that's the 1st time i see somethin like this in windows.
Also i used wintop and sandra 2000 pro to see wat programs r loaded and i found a strange program called wmiexe.exe which doesn't show up in CTRL-ALT-DEL menu ..
and of course wasn't present in win98 Gold.
I didn't install the windows managemeent instrumentation (WMI) which i believe wmiexe.exe is part of it.
U can get WMI to load in Win98 SE if u chose so in the installation through the internet tools ( exact name is Web Based Enterprise Mgmt )
I dunno wat's this wmi.exe file doing in there and i wanna get rid of it.
also not sure if it's the cause of the busy mouse icon after bootup has finished.
thanx

[Rik]

I've had the annoying 'busy mouse' on bootup with several machines using Win98SE. I found the cause to be the 'systray.exe' program loading.
I rectified it by disabling 'systray' from startup. This isn't too drastic, as most programs using a tray icon will still work. In fact the only program that I know of that uses 'systray' is the volume control applet, and this can be just as easily reached by putting a shortcut to it in the QuickLaunch toolbar on the start menu.

[arbymo]

thanx for the info Rik .. u saved me alot of searching and troubleshooting ..
dunno yet if i'm gonna disable systray or live with that as i have lots of systray progs and dunno which is gonna work or not.
Back to tracing the weired wmiexe.exe file.

[DentyCracker]

The latest tweak utility from Matrox requires wmiexe.exe to be installed on win98 and nt4

[arbymo]

DentyCracker : yeah .. i just noticed that !!
I found out how people get used to use things they don't want to .. like this wmi.
Programs using these features increase and ur forced to use watever u don't like or else u won't be able to use alot of programs.
of course mtstu is just a small example .. but someday u'll find an important program u really need that uses these features.
then u need more memory and more hard disk space and life goes on !! >:-]

[Fat Tone]

I was told that symptom is while 98SE updates its application startup optimisations. It's hardly a big delay!

Tony.

[Bohrn]

but it's bleeding annoying tho...

You listening Microsoft?

------------------
AsusP2B ,iCeleron525(7x75), 128megs PC100, G40032megSH, Diamond MX300, 2 small HD's, 42X Sony CDrom and 98SE w/shutdown patch, PD 5.52015, 1 grey cat, 1 black cat and 1 calico

[arbymo]

very annoying specially if you install /uninstall alot of software, patches and updates that keeps you rebooting all the time.
Take the antivirus .dat files as example . each week or so ..

[arbymo]

Yep .. just found the offensive program.
It's indeed wmiexe.exe .
To get rid of the busy mouse icon and delay after booting windows, boot or shutdown to dos and goto c:\windows\system ( or whereever ur system folder is ) and rename the file wmiexe.exe to wmiexe.bak (u can't do this from windows coz the file is used )
This is one of the most annoying things in win98 SE.
Of course if ur using programs that make use of the windows management instrumentation u don't want to do this.
The latest mtstu 3.0 uses it to gather info about ur computer. but it's just info .. so who cares ??
Rik : the reason y disabling systray solved it for you is just coz wmiexe.exe gets loaded through an internal call from the systray program. ( u won't find wmiexe.exe anywhere in the startup or registry )
so u don't have to disable systray anymore.
thanx anyway man coz u put me on the right way when i tried ur method
Tony : I think the file responsible for application startup optimisations is taskmon.exe.

[arbymo]

Yep .. just found the offensive program.
It's indeed wmiexe.exe .
To get rid of the busy mouse icon and delay after booting windows, boot or shutdown to dos and goto c:\windows\system ( or whereever ur system folder is ) and rename the file wmiexe.exe to wmiexe.bak (u can't do this from windows coz the file is used )
This is one of the most annoying things in win98 SE.
Of course if ur using programs that make use of the windows management instrumentation u don't want to do this.
The latest mtstu 3.0 uses it to gather info about ur computer. but it's just info .. so who cares ??
Rik : the reason y disabling systray solved it for you is just coz wmiexe.exe gets loaded through an internal call from the systray program. ( u won't find wmiexe.exe anywhere in the startup or registry )
so u don't have to disable systray anymore.
thanx anyway man coz u put me on the right way when i tried ur method
Tony : I think the file responsible for application startup optimisations is taskmon.exe.

[Rik]

Great stuff Arbymo!
I don't use Win9x much now, but I'll remember that useful nugget for anytime I have to get my hands dirty with it in the future!

[Greebe]

Another way to disable it is to type in msinfo32 from start/run. Then select Tools/System Configuration Utility/Autoexec.bat and uncheck it from there. reboot, done

[arbymo]

Greebe : r u sure it's in the autoexec.bat ? I checked it and there's nothing in there.
Did u install the MS WMI core ?


[This message has been edited by arbymo (edited 14 October 2000).]