Process Lasso cannot be launched after Vista reboot

[wandro]

If I install the most recent release of Process Lasso on my Vista Home Premium system everything works fine. I can also terminate and relaunch it successfully.But once I have rebooted Vista, any attempt to start Process Lasso again results in an error message: "A required Bitsum Technologies COM object has not been properly registered (processcontrol.dll). Try reinstalling this application." Any help?

[Jeremy Collake]

Did you do an improper shutdown by any chance? I suspect this was caused by Windows reverting the registry changes made for whatever reason. To resolve the issue, try reinstalling Process Lasso. Alternatively, run:

regsvr32 "c:\program files\process lasso\processcontrol.dll"

The path may need to be corrected if you installed to a different location. I am going to remove that COM control soon so issues like this never happen.

[wandro]

I have tried several times to relaunch Process Lasso after a quite normal Vista reboot, resulting in the same error messages in all cases.

The regsvr32 call doesn't work either. It results in an error message, too, saying (in German), that ...\processcontroll.dll has been loaded successfully, but the call to DLLRegisterServer has failed with error code 0x80070005.

[wandro]

In the meantime I have found out that I should execute the regsvr32 command as administrator. Then the regsvr32 command succeeds, but the "processcontroll.dll: not properly registered" error remains, nevertheless, when I attempt to launch Process Lasso.

[Jeremy Collake]

That's strange, let's see if we can figure it out.

For this to occur what is certainly happening is that for some reason or another the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE values that are created when the ProcessControl.DLL object is registered are disappearing or becoming inaccessible.

It may be that there is some registry cleaning, anti-malware, anti-virus or other application that is removing the keys after they get created. Be sure to check for this.

Although there really isn't much I can do on this end since these registry entries need to exist, I am going to step up my efforts to just remove that COM control from Process Lasso, replaced with a standard DLL that doesn't need registration. I can maybe have a beta version out pretty quick with this new ability, but it will require a lot of regression testing.

You may want to use RegMon (or its new, combined, equivalent) to monitor the affected registry keys and see them get created, and when they might get deleted.

I'm sorry you've had troubles, and I certainly will help resolve it if I'm able. I really think it is more an issue with your system than Process Lasso.. we just need to determine why.

[wandro]

It isn't necessary to reboot Vista, but a logout/login is sufficient to produce the error.

If I then try to launch ProcessLasso.exe and supervise ProcessLasso.exe with SysInernals/ProcessMonitor then in the ProcessMonitor log there is only one entry containing the string "processcontroll.dll" at the moment when the error popup appears. Here it is:

17478   22:25:47,5184942   ProcessLasso.exe   1184   RegQueryValue   HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\DllNXOptions\processcontrol.dll   NAME NOT FOUND   Length: 1.024

[Jeremy Collake]

Hmm.. that is probably just a check to see if there is a DEP exception for ProcessControl.DLL. The CLSID and GUID lookups are more important.

You could try unregistering ProcessControl.dll, then re-registering it. You can unregister it with regsvr32.exe by adding the '/u' switch. It could be that there is some conflict in the GUID and CLSIDs. In theory a GUID/CLSID collision shouldn't occur, but I suppose it is possible that it has.

Having seen this reported problem gave me the impetus to quit exposing my code as a COM control. I am about halfway done removing it. So, a new beta is coming without use of any COM control. People have requested the ability to run Process Lasso from a thumb drive, and this will help for that too.

[wandro]

Finally I have found out, that I simply have to run ProcessLasso.exe as administrator. Then everything works. The disadvantage is that it produces a "blocked application" error message under Vista (UAC!) if it is launched automatically after login (and if you have checked the "run as administrator" checkbox in the "properties/compatibility" panel of the program). This reqires another user interaction ("run blocked applications") after every login, which is a bit annoying.

Many thanks for your prompt response.

[wandro]

Supplement: I have to set the "run as administrator" flag for both ProcessLasso.exe and ProcessGovernor.exe in the autostart case, and I have to unblock both separately after the "blocked applications" message.

[wandro]

Supplement 2: Seemingly it suffices to set the "run as administrator" flag and to establish an autostart directive for ProcessLasso.exe. Then only this process has to be unblocked after login on Vista.

[Jeremy Collake]

Interesting. This is a unique issue to your system I think, possibly due to your registry permissions, or perhaps you were installing as a limited user. However, it won't matter much longer. As I said, I also have coming soon a massive revamp of Process Lasso that will require zero changes to HKLM and no COM registration issues. It will also have substantially decreased memory use.

Thanksfor taking the time to investigate this issue further, it really helps me improve the quality of Process Lasso. I have 6 virtual machines here acting as test beds, but nothing beats real world use reports .

[wandro]

My user account has administrator priviledges, but UAC is enabled. The problems occur also if I install Process Lasso as administrator.

[Jeremy Collake]

I did a fresh install of Vista with all default settings to try to reproduce it, but didn't. So, I'm still not sure why it happens on your system and not elsewhere. Regardless, I'll have it resolved soon enough.

UPDATE: I am deferring removal of the COM object a couple more versions. The change is too major at such a critical time. Process Lasso should function fine for everyone using Vista though, this particular incident remains unexplained and no other reports of such a problem have been received.