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Quick answers to a few questions…

Quick answers to a few questions…

I get a fairly steady volume of questions here at Ask-Leo!. Unfortunately I can’t answer them all personally but here’s a batch of questions received over the past week and some quick answers.

  • Why doesn’t the “Help & Support” Service stay disabled like I set it?
  • Help! The print spooler service disappeared. What’s a PID?

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Why doesn’t the “Help & Support” Service stay disabled like I set it?

Yep, this service turns itself back on as soon as it gets a chance. Usually as soon as you ask for any kind of help. I verified it myself – I stopped and disabled the service then asked for help. Sure enough it’s back to auto-start and running. That’s more of a “how” than a “why” but it at least explains the behavior.

Help! The print spooler service disappeared.

No real way to know how that one happened. Bottom line is that it shouldn’t. The first step I’d take in these kinds of system corruption scenarios is to run the system file checker and see if that restores it.

What’s a PID?

PID stands for Process ID. It’s how the operating system keeps track of the various programs or processes on your machine. If you have to copies of a program running each will have a different PID. A great example is the ever-confusing svchost (see my previous svchost article). If you run “tasklist /svc” in a command window, each copy of svchost will have a different PID. If one seems to be taking too much CPU time as shown in task manager, the PID will let you determine which one it is in the tasklist /svc output.

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12 comments on “Quick answers to a few questions…”

  1. Hiya

    Ditexp.exe only seems to be running while dit.exe is running. Dit.exe from what I can work out is – “Drive Icon and Label Utility” – assigns drive icons and names to flash memory cards. Required, otherwise the drives aren’t found.

    Could be wrong though.. google searches arent perfect!

    Reply
  2. I ran cwshredder, a freeware program that gets rid of things that spyware does not and it was not sure whether to delete dit.exe or not. Says it shows random files. Any ideas??

    Reply
  3. I found Dit.exe and DITexp.exe running and in the registry after installing 7 in one card reader drivers from a cd supplied. I found the instructions had been translated from Chinese and the screenshots showed XP with Chinese writing, but only after the CD had autoran(forgot to press shift ! DOH!)
    The instructions appear to say that XP does not need these ‘Drivers'(it says-quote’??Win2K & XP:
    ?Because it have no use to install driver under Windows2K(SP2,SP3,SP4) & WindowsXP SP1. We just provide the AP of disk icon.’ unquote.also, the instructions refer to it as an ICSI USB 2.0 reader..ICSI being the company shown in the properties tab of the two DIT exe files. So I have stopped the DIT programs and deleted the regisry entries that run them at startup. No problems, the card reader works fine..(well, for CompactFlash, anyway…)

    Reply
  4. WinTasks Process Library

    dit – dit.exe – Process Information
    Process File: dit or dit.exe
    Process Name: Drive Icon and Label Utility
    Description: Essential background task that is required to assign drive icons and names to flash memory cards.

    Reply
  5. dit.exe and ditexp.exe are only needed for Win98. they ae utilities that provide the icon and maybe other functions for various usb card readers SD, CF, SM etc. Never installed them for xp or 2k and readers work, had to install for win98.

    Reply
  6. Also Windows ME, of course, since it’s basically Win98 3rd ed. (same kernel, etc.) See also DigExp.exe, dit.dll, dit.ini. Grisoft’s AVG says not a virus. Card brand (here) is “Interage”, a “Six in One Flash Memory Reader”, Mod. CFX-1, USB interface, manufactured in Korea in July 2003.

    Reply
  7. I have an interage 6 in 1 flash memory card (CFX-1). There are only 4 slots on one side.Where are the other 2? Can I use this device for xD-Picture Card?

    Reply
  8. Several different memory cards use the same slot. I, to, have a 6-in-1 (or maybe it’s an 8-in-1), that has only 4 slots. Basically, use the slot that most closely fits the memory card you’re trying to read.

    Reply
  9. Great info leo but how do i found out what is causing explorer.exe to use all the memory? Have run process explorer which confirms useage but gives me no clue as to why. Am i just better off rebooting? andrew

    Reply

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