Running process woes in Windows Task Manager

[Jackson]

A process named Agent.exe is active in Task Manager to a ridiculous
degree. The name pops up as a running process and during several
seconds appears to make scores of read/write calls to the registry.
Then it disappears for several more seconds until it comes back up and
repeats the process (over and over and over...).

I tracked the program to:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\InstallShield\UpdatServices\.

I renamed it to ZZZagent.exe and rebooted. The machine goes thru a
frenzy of trying to find Agent.exe which I renamed. It tells me to
insert the ScanSoft Omni Page SE 4.0 disk and etc. Finally I keep
cancelling the requests and it tells me that the Windows installation
cannot continue and I should visit http://consumer.installshield.com
for more information.

Then it give me back my computer for about two minutes and the whole
process starts over.

I visited the page but found nothing of immediate help.

Since I renamed agent.exe the LED for my HD only flash about once per
second; with agent.exe active it flashed about three times per second.
Once a second intuitively seems extremely excessive but it's still
better than three times per second.

My question: Do I really need this Windows Installation thing? If I
can get along without it I would prefer to. How can I keep it from
trying to reload? There must be a reference to "Agent.exe" in the
registry that I could find and erase.

Or, probably smarter, there is ScanSoft Omni Page SE 4.0 listed in the
"Add and remove programs" thingy in Control Panel. Would I regret
removing that???

Any advice appreciated.

 

[R. McCarty]

Agent.Exe is likely Service based. If so, you can simply set it's
Start Mode to Disabled (4) in the Registry. That's probably a
makeshift solution as Omni page considers it a dependency. If
possible you might open Omni Page and see if it has an option
to disable automatic updates ( or checking ) this alone might
neuter the Agent.Exe from loading/running.
If you don't use Omni Page, I'd just uninstall it. The less you
have installed on the PC generally results in quicker/more reliable
operation.

 

[Jackson]

A process named Agent.exe is active in Task Manager to a ridiculous
degree. ...

Oops, I forgot: XP (MCE) on a Dell Dimension C521. Dual 64 bit CPU
if that matters.

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

OmniPage is an OCR application. Optical Character Recognition. It reads
images and deciphers any text that is present. Unless you use this
application, I'd uninstall it. It's not any great shakes as to what it can
do, anyway. Lots of much better OCR apps out there.

 

[PA Bear]

1. What anti-virus application is installed? Is your subscription current?

2. Start > Settings > Control Panel > Security Center: What is the reported
status here for (a) your anti-virus application, (b) firewall, and (c)
Automatic Updates?

3. Can you reach any of the following websites using Internet Explorer?...

www.avp.com
www.ca.com
www.f-secure.com
www.kaspersky.com
www.mcafee.com
www.my-etrust.com
www.nai.com
www.networkassociates.com
www.pandasoftware.com
www.sophos.com
www.symantec.com
www.trendmicro.com
www.viruslist.com

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

The 64-bit part might explain why the app is having problems. Are you
certain that it is 64-bit compliant? Yes, most 32-bit apps can be installed
on 64-bit Windows, but it's not 100%, especially with components that
interface with hardware, which I suspect OmniPage does at least somewhat.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

The 64-bit part might explain why the app is having problems. Are you
certain that it is 64-bit compliant? Yes, most 32-bit apps can be installed
on 64-bit Windows, but it's not 100%, especially with components that
interface with hardware, which I suspect OmniPage does at least somewhat.

Gary, despite his 64-bit CPU, he's running MCE, which doesn't come in
a 64-bit version.

So that can't be an issue.

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

Now that you mention it...

 

[Jackson]

1. What anti-virus application is installed? Is your subscription current?

AVG free edition, up to date

2. Start > Settings > Control Panel > Security Center: What is the reported
status here for (a) your anti-virus application, (b) firewall, and (c)
Automatic Updates?

All three are ON.

3. Can you reach any of the following websites using Internet Explorer?...

www.avp.com Yes
Yes
www.my-etrust.com

Above address opens to http://shop.ca.com/

www.nai.com

Above address opens to http://www.mcafee.com/us/

www.networkassociates.com

Above address opens to http://www.mcafee.com/us/

www.pandasoftware.com Yes
yes
www.viruslist.com

Yes

 

[RalfG]

OmniPage is character recognition software for your scanner. Scan a printed
page from a book or newspaper and it converts the image into an editable
text document. If you don't plan on using it you can uninstall the program.

I got Omnipage SE 2.0 with my Canon scanner. It loads a TSR called
OpwareSE2, but Agent.exe does not run. I did previously disable automatic
updating for the InstallShield updater though. IIRC it would search for
updates online for several apps that were on the computer. There were never
any updates found except for Installshield itself anyway.