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dana_murphy
Participant
Oct 19, 2009 4:49 PM UTC
Question

What is CharacterMap.exe process?

When starting FrameMaker 9, a CharacterMap.exe process is started. After a while, this process starts consuming approx. 50% of my CPU. Even after closing FramekMake, the process continues to run. What is this process for?

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    6 replies

    Arnis Gubins
    Arnis Gubins
    Inspiring
    Oct 19, 2009 8:06 PM UTC

    Dana,

    The CharacterMap process is an add-on unicode entry tool for FM9. I hadn't noticed that it starts up with FM, but you can safely kill the process. It will restart whenever you use the File > Utilities > Character Palette... option.

    Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any way to disable this from starting, other than renaming or moving the CharacterMap.exe file in the \fminit folder. However, if you need this to enter unicode characters, you'll be out-of-luck.

    On my setups, this process does shutdown when FM terminates.

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    dana_murphyAuthor
    Participant
    Oct 19, 2009 10:07 PM UTC

    Thanks for the reply Arnis. For some reason, when I kill the CharacterMap process, the explorer.exe process takes over where CharacterMap left off -- that is, using about 50% of my CPU. Very odd, but I did it three times -- same result. At that point, the system is pretty much unusable.

    Anyway, I resolved the issue (at least temporarily) by renaming CharacterMap.exe so FrameMaker can't start it. I haven't noticed any adverse affects yet. I might at some point when using unicode characters.

    Thanks for your help.

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    Arnis Gubins
    Arnis Gubins
    Inspiring
    Oct 20, 2009 12:43 AM UTC

    Dana,

    explorer.exe is a Windows system process and should be running.

    How much RAM does your machine have and which OS are you using?

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