Endpoint Encryption

 View Only
Back to discussions
Expand all | Collapse all

PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

Migration User

Migration UserNov 29, 2011 08:50 AM

10.2 MP4 is expected to be released next febreaury
Migration User

Migration UserNov 30, 2011 09:28 AM

Exit pgp services, as you previously mention.

  • 1.  PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Nov 18, 2011 04:58 AM

    I have PGP Version 10.2 MP1 installed on Windows 7 64-bit (however, I've noticed this on previous versions of PGP as well).

    The PGP Services (pgptray.exe) that starts on windows startup is interfering with DDE as it causes all shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly.  Does anyone have a similar problem and know how to fix it?

     

    It's very easy to replicate:

    With PGP starting as normal (icon in Windows system tray), and with Microsoft Excel not running (this is important, as if Excel is already running, it makes no difference), double-click in windows explorer on a Microsoft Excel document.  See how long it takes before the Excel splash screen appears indicating that Excel is loading.  On my PC: this is about 5 seconds.

    Right-click the tray icon, and select "Exit PGP Services" (or go to process manager and terminate pgptray.exe)

    With Microsoft Excel not running, double-click in windows explorer on a Microsoft Excel document. See how long it takes before the Excel splash screen appears indicating that Excel is loading. On my PC: this is instantaneous.

     

    On my PC, Internet Explorer 9 also uses DDE for opening links.  So I have the same delay when clicking on ".html" shortcuts in Windows Explorer if IE is not running ( and it also impacts opening attachments/links in Outlook the same way).

     

    Any feedback gratefuly received!



  • 2.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Nov 18, 2011 09:40 AM

    Well, I tried opening Excel 2007 in a Win7 x64 + PGP Desktop 10.2 MP1 and could not reproduce this behaviour.

    I suggest downgrade to Office 2007.

    You can try to disable Memory lock feature if you want, but dynamic data as pagefile won´t be encrypted anymore.



  • 3.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Nov 18, 2011 09:59 AM

    Many thanks for trying.  Note that it is exactly the same problem with Internet Explorer using DDE, so it's not an issue with any particular version of Office.

    The only thing to note is that Excel does not use DDE if its "ignore DDE" option is turned on in its advanced settings (so then the problem would not manifest itself).

    I can certainly try disabling memory lock if that may help.  Is the only way to do that by uninstalling and then reinstalling PGP using the command line options?



  • 4.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Nov 18, 2011 10:37 AM

    You can also disable memlock wihout reinstalling.

    Go to start, run , type regedit , enter.

    Edit, Find entry  PGP_INSTALL_MEMLOCK and change it´s value to 0.

    Restart pgp.

    tell me how it goes that way ;)



  • 5.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Nov 18, 2011 11:20 AM

    Many thanks for the advice.  I did as you suggested.  The registry change definitely disabled memlock as I received a warning message when I started PGP stating that the memory was not locked.

    However, it hasn't fixed the problem.  The problem is still exactly the same as described in my first post.



  • 6.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Nov 25, 2011 09:35 AM

    Unfortunately we are facing the same problem with PGP WDE 10.2 in our company. The problem appears in the following Excel versions: 2002/XP, 2003, and finally 2007.

    Thanks in advance.



  • 7.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Nov 28, 2011 04:15 AM

    Dear Mr. Julian, thanks for your quick response.

    Unfortunately we are in the middle of PGP rollout in our company and we are facing the same problem in almost every machine in which we have installed PGP WDE 10.2. Can you please tell us when the 10.2 MP4 version will probably be released?

    Also is there any workaround solution for this issue? We are facing a major problem here and we have many users complaining about Word and Excel delay.

    Thanks in advance.



  • 8.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Nov 29, 2011 04:08 AM

    This is what I've done as a workaround.  It's not a great workaround, and I'm not sure whether you'd want to roll it out.  If you remove PGP Tray from startup items, it doesn't load the PGP services on startup and so its doesn't cause the delay.  I'm not sure what the services do but I use PGP for its full disk encryption and its PGP Zip, and both of these seem to work fine without the services running.  Whenever I run PGP desktop, it asks whether it should start PGP services and I just say "no"



  • 9.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Nov 29, 2011 08:50 AM

    10.2 MP4 is expected to be released next febreaury



  • 10.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Nov 30, 2011 08:59 AM

    Thanks a lot for the info. Since as you mention in previous post, this is confirmed to be a bug, do you know of any official workaround till then ?

     



  • 11.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Nov 30, 2011 09:28 AM

    Exit pgp services, as you previously mention.



  • 12.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Jan 11, 2012 09:36 AM

    I have been informed this is a bug, and it´s already being worked by engineering.
    Probably it will be fixed in next 10.2 MP4 version.

    Read release notes when new version is ready, so you will know if this fix has been included.

     

    EDIT: Bug has not been created. A case will be needed for that.



  • 13.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Jan 17, 2012 05:28 PM

    I'm not finding a bug that was logged and fixed in PGP Desktop 10.2 MP4 that is released in the begining of Feb.  Although, there may be a chance that a fix was quickly checked in and not documented.  If so, it would be a good test to verify if 10.2 MP4 does fix this issue. 

    I have logged a bug on this and I have found a reproducible case.  I'm still waiting to find the details of the issue. 



  • 14.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Feb 22, 2012 06:44 AM

    I have just installed 10.2 MP4 on a machine that was previously affected by this issue and the problem is still present. It appears that this bug has NOT been fixed in MP4, it is still taking 7+ seconds to open an Excel document while PGP services are running.

    As a workaround for now, I have set up the following registry file:

     

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\command]
    @="\"C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office12\\EXCEL.EXE\" /e \"%1\""
    "command"=-
     
    [-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\ddeexec]
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\command]
    @="\"C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office12\\EXCEL.EXE\" /e \"%1\""
    "command"=-
     
    [-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\ddeexec]
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.SheetBinaryMacroEnabled.12\shell\Open\command]
    @="\"C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office12\\EXCEL.EXE\" /e \"%1\""
    "command"=-
     
    [-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.SheetBinaryMacroEnabled.12\shell\Open\ddeexec]
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.8\shell\Open\command]
    @="\"C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office12\\WINWORD.EXE\" /n "%1""
    "command"=-
     
    [-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.8\shell\Open\ddeexec]
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open\command]
    @="\"C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office12\\WINWORD.EXE\" /n "%1""
    "command"=-
     
    [-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open\ddeexec]
     
     
    This will disable DDE for Excel and Word documents and speed things up. This only fixes the .doc, .docx .xls, .xlsx and .xlsb file types as those are the primary ones used here.
     
    To undo this change you can merge the following:
     
    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\command]
    @="\"C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office14\\EXCEL.EXE\" /dde"
    "command"=hex(7):78,00,62,00,27,00,42,00,56,00,35,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,\
      34,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,4d,00,4b,00,4b,00,53,00,6b,00,45,00,58,00,43,\
      00,45,00,4c,00,46,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,73,00,3e,00,75,00,32,00,42,00,65,00,\
      54,00,2c,00,38,00,58,00,5b,00,3d,00,5d,00,39,00,3d,00,3d,00,2c,00,2a,00,29,\
      00,4e,00,6e,00,5d,00,20,00,2f,00,64,00,64,00,65,00,00,00,00,00
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\ddeexec]
    @="[open(\"%1\")]"
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\ddeexec\application]
    @="Excel"
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\ddeexec\topic]
    @="system"
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\command]
    @="\"C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office14\\EXCEL.EXE\" /dde"
    "command"=hex(7):78,00,62,00,27,00,42,00,56,00,35,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,\
      34,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,4d,00,4b,00,4b,00,53,00,6b,00,45,00,58,00,43,\
      00,45,00,4c,00,46,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,73,00,3e,00,75,00,32,00,42,00,65,00,\
      54,00,2c,00,38,00,58,00,5b,00,3d,00,5d,00,39,00,3d,00,3d,00,2c,00,2a,00,29,\
      00,4e,00,6e,00,5d,00,20,00,2f,00,64,00,64,00,65,00,00,00,00,00
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\ddeexec]
    @="[open(\"%1\")]"
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\ddeexec\application]
    @="Excel"
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\ddeexec\topic]
    @="system"
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.SheetBinaryMacroEnabled.12\shell\Open\command]
    @="\"C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office14\\EXCEL.EXE\" /dde"
    "command"=hex(7):78,00,62,00,27,00,42,00,56,00,35,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,\
      34,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,4d,00,4b,00,4b,00,53,00,6b,00,45,00,58,00,43,\
      00,45,00,4c,00,46,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,73,00,3e,00,75,00,32,00,42,00,65,00,\
      54,00,2c,00,38,00,58,00,5b,00,3d,00,5d,00,39,00,3d,00,3d,00,2c,00,2a,00,29,\
      00,4e,00,6e,00,5d,00,20,00,2f,00,64,00,64,00,65,00,00,00,00,00
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.SheetBinaryMacroEnabled.12\shell\Open\ddeexec]
    @="[open(\"%1\")]"
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.SheetBinaryMacroEnabled.12\shell\Open\ddeexec\application]
    @="Excel"
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.SheetBinaryMacroEnabled.12\shell\Open\ddeexec\topic]
    @="system"
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.8\shell\Open\command]
    @="\"C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office12\\WINWORD.EXE\" /n /dde"
    "command"=hex(7):76,00,55,00,70,00,41,00,56,00,35,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,\
      21,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,4d,00,4b,00,4b,00,53,00,6b,00,57,00,4f,00,52,\
      00,44,00,46,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,73,00,3e,00,74,00,57,00,7b,00,7e,00,24,00,\
      34,00,51,00,5d,00,63,00,40,00,35,00,64,00,31,00,60,00,2c,00,78,00,61,00,54,\
      00,4f,00,35,00,20,00,2f,00,6e,00,20,00,2f,00,64,00,64,00,65,00,00,00,00,00
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.8\shell\Open\ddeexec]
    @="[REM _DDE_Direct][FileOpen(\"%1\")]"
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.8\shell\Open\ddeexec\Application]
    @="WinWord"
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.8\shell\Open\ddeexec\Topic]
    @="System"
     
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open\command]
    @="\"C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office12\\WINWORD.EXE\" /n /dde"
    "command"=hex(7):76,00,55,00,70,00,41,00,56,00,35,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,\
      21,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,4d,00,4b,00,4b,00,53,00,6b,00,57,00,4f,00,52,\
      00,44,00,46,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,73,00,3e,00,74,00,57,00,7b,00,7e,00,24,00,\
      34,00,51,00,5d,00,63,00,40,00,35,00,64,00,31,00,60,00,2c,00,78,00,61,00,54,\
      00,4f,00,35,00,20,00,2f,00,6e,00,20,00,2f,00,64,00,64,00,65,00,00,00,00,00
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open\ddeexec]
    @="[REM _DDE_Direct][FileOpen(\"%1\")]"
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open\ddeexec\Application]
    @="WinWord"
     
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open\ddeexec\Topic]
    @="System"
     
    Which should put everything back to normal. It's a bit of a stupid fix and I'd rather not disable DDE, but our requirement for PGP here unfortunately is making this issue very annoying, and so a workaround had to be found.
     
    Richard
     


  • 15.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Feb 28, 2012 02:35 PM

    Zebwen, really good information. thanks for sharing.

    I have good news: developement team has recently found a solution for this bug, its already fixed and it will be included in next release (MP4 has already been released, probably MP5 or 10.3 , not sure)

     

     

    This is bug reference number: 2584262


  • 16.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Mar 13, 2012 02:06 PM

    Is there a release date for the version that will fix this bug?



  • 17.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly

    Posted Apr 06, 2012 04:24 AM

    PGP Desktop 10.2.0 MP5(2599) is released a few days ago. anyone checked this issue on this version? or anyone know it? our customer has same problem so i need update infomation. 

    i checked the new version release note but i cannot find anything about this issue! please let me know it.

    thanks.



  • 18.  RE: PGP Services causing shortcuts that open using DDE to open very slowly
    Best Answer

    Posted Apr 16, 2012 12:10 PM
    I've installed 10.2.0 MP5 and that's solved the issue for me. Word/Excel documents now open instantaneously with the PGP services running in the background. I think the relevant item in the release notes was the very badly worded: "Resolved the issue where Microsoft Excel 2010 files larger than 1MB took longer to open when PGP Tray is running than when it was not. [2663210]", though the bug number is different from the # quoted above.