Installing 3dsmax 2015 "breaks" Windows 8.1

[kitar1]

Hello,

I'm having a peculiar problem with 3dmax 2015. I'm able to install it and it works ok, but something get's messed up with with Windows. Soon after the installation is complete, a windows process rundll.exe starts with the parameters "aeinv.dll,UpdateSoftwareInventory". It hogs one core of my CPU 100% and never completes. The only way to stop it, is selecting "end process". Afterwards every time I install or uninstall any software, the same process starts again hogging CPU and never stops until I force it to shut down.

I though maybe there was something wrong with my PC or Windows installation. Recently I bought a new computer with a clean installation of windows 8.1 Pro x64 in it. After installing 3dsmax, the same problem with the rundll appeared again. I ran system restore to remove 3dsmax completely, and the problem disappeared instantly.

Apparently it is not hardware specific, as it's occurring with 2 different computers.

Probably I should not keep up much hope to get this resolved anytime soon as I couldn't find anything about this problem related to 3dsmax. But I though I would at least try. There seems to be couple of other programs which seem to trigger this problem. Also it seems to be related to windows 8 (or 8.1).

I wonder if autodesk is aware of this?

Thanks

[asburyj]

I haven't heard of 3ds Max causing a conflict with Application Experience Program Inventory in windows. Most likely it's not actually 3ds max causing the issue but rather a prerequisite installation that is affecting windows. I noticed you said you ran a system restore to remove the issue, If you just uninstall 3ds max normally does the issue remain? 

What I would suggest looking at is see what Visual C++ install, Video driver/directx changes, and Microsoft .net frameworks installs may be happening as part of the install, more likely it's something like that leading to your issue. Do both systems that are encountering this issue have the same type of video card?

[kitar1]

Hello,

Thanks for the reply. I believe I solved the issue? I used Sysinternals Process monitor to see what the rundll32.exe was actually doing. It appreared that it was processing something with the populate data. So I uninstalled the populate data and the now  rundll no longer keep running. I wonder if it could have finished what ever it was doing with the populate if I had let it run as long as it wanted. But anyway, I consider this issue solved as it is.

[MasterOfBudo]

Thanks, have the very same problem here! Very annoying 

 

[chriswhy]

How did you "uninstall" the Populate data? Removing C:/Program Files/Common Files/Autodesk Shared/PeoplePower fixed the rundll32.exe problem for me, but now whenever I open a model I get an error about the Populate data. I'm reinstalling the data now, seeing if the problem comes back.

EDIT: Evidently, the installer from this page didn't install ALL the Populate data, just Evolver. All it offers to install is the high-res files for Evolver specifically, and the error still occurred when opening my scene - and this time, with the Run32dll problem again!

So yeah, PeoplePower folder deleted again. I guess I'll just live with that error message for now. I don't need Populate anyway, I'm just learning basic modeling/animation.

[kitar1]

Greetings,

I was getting the same error message when loading a scene. I installed populate data again, and patiently waited rundll to do whatever it was doing. It took several hours, but then eventually finnished and since then all has been ok.

I hope this was helpful.

[chriswhy]

This has happened to me whenever I've run 3DS Max, and removing the Populate data didn't fix it. Here's what worked for me:

Task Scheduler > Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows > Application Experience -- disabled task 'ProgramDataUpdater'

Problem went away and hasn't come back yet.

EDIT: Wait, I did see the run32dll.exe thing come back just now. Never mind.

[chriswhy]

I didn't realize I had posted in this thread a while back. Well, another update, since I can't edit my last post for some reason.

I just uninstalled 3DS Max and Application Manager, deleted all the Autodesk folders I could find, and used CCleaner to clean up the registry... Then I reinstalled 3DS Max and... it's still there. That run32dll/aeinv.dll process taking up 32% of my CPU for no clear reason, making my fan run loud when I'm not doing anything, despite disabling the Customer Experience thing.

I have no idea how to fix this and haven't found any solutions anywhere online.

Autodesk, please help!

[chriswhy]

Well, I guess until Windows 10 comes out and possibly fixes this, I'll just have to kill the task whenever it comes back... which it has, a few times tonight. Oh well.