What is mmtask?

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

J. P. Gilliver - 12 Apr 2007 16:34 GMT

Recently, I tried to load some software (image and video viewer, I think)
from an old (pre-98 I think) CD. It seemed to screw things up pretty well,
so I went back to an ERD which I had saved not long before. Now most things
work OK, but I get three or four errors during boot. They are quite an
old-fashioned error box: two buttons, labelled something like Ignore and
Cancel, and no title bar (so no close boxes). When I accept them (Ignore I
think), all is well.

They seem to be associated with sounds, though that could be incidental: the
Windows startup sound, and the EZdesk restore chorus. For the first two, the
accused task (the error box says what it thinks has done something naughty)
is mmtask, and the second two EZdesk.

The only file I can find called mmtask - which isn't a .exe, .bat., or
.com - has a date and version number that matchs a lot of the other files
that are part of my Windows installation: date 23rd April (1998 or '9 IIRR),
version (IIRR) ending in 2222. I've virus-checked with fairly up-to-date
data files (not that anything from that CD would be at all recent!), and
found nothing.

Any thoughts? (Constructive I mean of course - "don't load dodgy software"
is obvious!)

The only other symptom, which might be nothing to do with it but I mention
it as I think the rogue _was_ a pic/vid viewer, is that I have some movie
files from one of these solid-state camcorders (mp4 or Xvid format,
something like that - I think they're .avi file extension), and how these
play has changed. Usually, for pictures and video, I let IrfanView run, as
it seems to pick up whatever CoDecs are installed and use them, with a lot
less fuss than MediaPlayer. It used to play these, though rather jerkily;
now it doesn't, but Media Player does, and smoothly (I think that used to
play them jerkily too). Since I imagine that whatever CoDec I have installed
which WMP is using is far newer than the rogue software, this change may be
purely coincidental, but it does seem a coincidence.

According to its "Properties", the mmtask file is Microsoft and something to
do with scheduling media somethings.

Reply to this Message

J. P. Gilliver - 12 Apr 2007 16:49 GMT

[]

> work OK, but I get three or four errors during boot. They are quite an
> old-fashioned error box: two buttons, labelled something like Ignore and
> Cancel, and no title bar (so no close boxes). When I accept them (Ignore I
> think), all is well.

[]
Ignore and Close, they are. (Someone gave the full wording in another post
near here - something like losing your work.)

Reply to this Message

Don Phillipson - 12 Apr 2007 21:30 GMT

> Recently, I tried to load some software (image and video viewer, I think)
> from an old (pre-98 I think) CD. It seemed to screw things up pretty well,
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> that are part of my Windows installation: date 23rd April (1998 or '9 IIRR),
> version (IIRR) ending in 2222.

Default installation creates a subfolder
C:\Windows\Tasks
which should have in it (at least) one icon named
"Add Scheduled Task"
which calls up the Wizard to execute specified
tasks at assigned times (formerly used by office
PCs to run DEFRAG overnight etc.)

Signature

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

Reply to this Message

Jeff Richards - 13 Apr 2007 10:16 GMT

MMTask.tsk is a process that manages background multimedia operations. You
can use the machine without it, although some multimedia stuff won't work
properly. Just rename it to something else, reboot, and see what the
effect is.

If it turns out to be the problem, the error probably isn't with mmtask but
with some multimedia component that mmtask is trying to manage.

Signature

Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)

> Recently, I tried to load some software (image and video viewer, I think)
> from an old (pre-98 I think) CD. It seemed to screw things up pretty well,
[quoted text clipped - 33 lines]
> According to its "Properties", the mmtask file is Microsoft and something
> to do with scheduling media somethings.

Reply to this Message

J. P. Gilliver - 19 Apr 2007 18:34 GMT

> MMTask.tsk is a process that manages background multimedia operations.
> You can use the machine without it, although some multimedia stuff won't
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> If it turns out to be the problem, the error probably isn't with mmtask
> but with some multimedia component that mmtask is trying to manage.

Thanks: I'd got the impression it was something like that. (I have the
computer set to play "ding" twice and "tadaa" once at points between 7:30
and 7:50 or so, which I used once when staying somewhere where I didn't have
an alarm clock. I've left these in, as they provide a useful reminder that
time is passing! Will they still work if I rename mmtask.tsk?)

Any idea why it's gone wrong though? The "alarm clock" was working fine for
months. Obviously it seems likely it has something to do with the ancient
software I tried to install, but how can I fix it, which I'd like to do,
rather than just commenting disabling some functionality, which sems like
admitting defeat. I've tried ERD-ing to a set I'd saved before that, but it
didn't cure it this time.

It may or may not have anything to do with it, but AVG keeps finding a
trojan in a file called CCsomething which is in a subdirectory of
\windows\temp (but isn't there when I look for it); I _think_ it's
regenerated by a screensaver starting up, especially if it's one that has
sound. (I select the "clean" option in AVG, and it so far has always
reported success in cleaning the file.)

>> Recently, I tried to load some software (image and video viewer, I think)
>> from an old (pre-98 I think) CD. It seemed to screw things up pretty
[quoted text clipped - 34 lines]
>> According to its "Properties", the mmtask file is Microsoft and something
>> to do with scheduling media somethings.

Reply to this Message

Jeff Richards - 20 Apr 2007 10:09 GMT

The connection to the trojan is difficult to ignore. If it's trying to
exploit something in a MM component then the error you are seeing is very
likely if your AV has deleted or removed or renamed files as part of the
cleaning process.

Removing or renaming MMTask was simply to confirm it as the source of the
error.

I would take out all MM components from startup, including screen savers and
similar until the system operates properly with MMTask running, then add
them back one by one to see at what point the error re-appears.

Signature

Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)

>> MMTask.tsk is a process that manages background multimedia operations.
>> You can use the machine without it, although some multimedia stuff won't
[quoted text clipped - 62 lines]
>>> According to its "Properties", the mmtask file is Microsoft and
>>> something to do with scheduling media somethings.

Reply to this Message

J. P. Gilliver - 09 May 2007 20:17 GMT

> The connection to the trojan is difficult to ignore. If it's trying to
> exploit something in a MM component then the error you are seeing is very
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> and similar until the system operates properly with MMTask running, then
> add them back one by one to see at what point the error re-appears.

Sorry to be so slow in providing followup. My system is now back behaving OK
(including MM functions); unfortunately I can't remember what I did to make
it so! (_Might_ have something to do with some codec I loaded or reloaded,
as it plays certain kinds of movie files better than it did when things were
bad.)

Thanks again all!

>>> MMTask.tsk is a process that manages background multimedia operations.
>>> You can use the machine without it, although some multimedia stuff won't
[quoted text clipped - 63 lines]
>>>> According to its "Properties", the mmtask file is Microsoft and
>>>> something to do with scheduling media somethings.

Reply to this Message