[SOLVED] Microsoft LifeCam VX-3000 Process Problem

[Psachnodaimonia]

As Indicated in the title I am using a "Microsoft LifeCam VX-3000" as my web cam. I am using Windows XP with Service Pack 3 installed. The camera is working fine, but the service running it (I assume it is the one that appears as vVX3000.exe in my task manager) is causing a slight irritation everytime I shut down my computer: It refuses to let itself be turned off by windows. Instead the following error message is displayed:


End Program - CameraMonitor(VX3000)

This program is not responding.

To return to Windows and check the status of the program click Cancel.

If you choose to end the program immediately, you will lose any unsaved data. To end the program now, click End Now.


There is of course no unsaved data to be lost and if I click "End Now" the process is ended and Windows proceeds to Shut Down. However I often forget about this minor nuisance, tell my computer to shut down and leave to find the computer still running the next morning because "CameraMonitor(VX3000)" is not responding. This has been annoying me for a while now and I was wondering whether it is possible to make windows force quit the process automatically every time I shut down.

Any help would be appreciated.


PS: A completely separate thing I was wondering about regarding the "vVX3000.exe" process is weather one can make it run only when the Web Camera is actually connected to the computer. (I don't like processes running in the background when they are clearly not needed, like a web cam process when the web cam is not connected, out of principal. Even if they are so insignificantly small they don't actually influence system performance in any way.)

[atavist]

have you tried uninstalling/reinstalling the application?

if you are running xp pro you can create a batch file with taskkill to run at shutdown.

you can disable it from starting up all together using autoruns.

[Psachnodaimonia]

Unfortunately (I cringe to admit) I am using Windows XP Media Center Edition (I rue the day I decided not to upgrade to professional).

I uninstalled the Driver for the Camera as well as the Program that came with it (which I don't need anyway). Amazingly the process in question was still running and causing the same problem as always after I had supposedly uninstalled the driver. I have no idea what part of this Cameras software is still installed on my computer. When I reconnected the camera it was identified as "New Hardware" and the driver for it was automatically reinstalled, suggesting that the driver was properly uninstalled before.

I don't actually want to disable the process completely because I do want the camera to work when I am using it. I just want the damn thing to die automatically when I tell my computer to shut down.

[Psachnodaimonia]

I must apologize for using your time atavist. After some more probing about I noticed that the offending process ("vVX3000.exe") Is not actually necessary to use the webcam. I just ended the process via Task Manager, and told msconfig not to run it on startup. Problem solved! (I could research what this apparently useless process was actually supposed to do but I don't care enough.)

Sometimes one does not see the forest for the trees I guess.

PS: Is there some way to close this thread?

[atavist]

good job. glad you got it figured out.

there is a way to mark a thread as solved, but i'm not sure how.

i think it is in thread tools or something (i've never started a thread here), so i've no idea.