How to delete MDM.exe (Office 2003 & Win 7)?

[iain_m]

Hi all,

I've just done a clean install of Win7 Ultimate 32-bit, and also, amongst other programs, Office 2003.

Previously I had installed this on Win XP and even with 'visual basic for applications' selected in the Office installation options, managed not to awaken the sleeping dragon that is MDM.exe, Microsoft's Machine Debugging Manager.

But now on my new system I see that MDM is back.

Needless to say, Microsoft's advice about turning off the service (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321410) doesn't make one jot of difference to its presence. :wacko:

Nor does reconfiguring the Office installer to remove (as far as I can see) all references to scripting, including visual basic for applications. ???

Sure, I can manually stop the MDM service, but would rather it wasn't there at all. I also suspect it may be resurrected by an Office update sometime.

Of course, it doesn't use much memory, but it's irritating on principle. If, as Microsoft claims (in the kb link above), it is "you can safely turn off the Machine Debug Manager [...] If you do not use your computer for debugging purposes", then why the heck isn't there just a big fat control panel button that says "MACHINE DEBUG MANAGER ON / OFF"?? >:(

I can remember battling the MDM zombie back in the days of Office 2000! I can't believe this is still an issue, even in the days of Vista/7 UAC. Can anyone advise on how to behead it for good in 2010?

[Cudni]

maybe this
http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/office-2003-and-machine-debug-manager-error

[doktornotor]

I have never ever had a problem w/ disabling it via services management console (set it to disabled). Other than that, I don't see any sense in an POC excercise of saving couple hundreds of KiB on HDD.

[iain_m]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

@Cudni - the method described in the link is essentially the mdm.exe equivalent of a method of eliminating the 'wisptis' service (a Tablet PC-specific service that, bafflingly, can get started on standard Windows XP PCs, and then won't go away).

Unfortunately the wisptis fix works only until Office is updated through Microsoft Update, whereupon it reappears (zombie-like!), so I'd expect the same thing would probably happen if this is done for MDM. Ideally I'm looking for a more definitive way of turning the service off.

@doktornotor - I do take your point; MDM is not intrusive, but it is a bit irritating on principle. It uses up memory (which is still a valuable commodity on a 32-bit OS), and I dislike the way it gets installed/turned on by Office in an apparently irreversible way.

[Cudni]

try setting the service to disabled, as suggested. It should stay so after updates but do let know if it does not

[iain_m]

Will do. :)