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Every now and then, since I installed Lion on my Mac, I have noticed that a process called uninstalld has been running and using a lot of CPU time.
Does anyone know what it does? I haven't tried to uninstall anything.
Stephen Winnall
Posted 2011-08-06T09:48:14.753
Reputation: 81
1
uninstalld appears to belong to a new "Uninstall" framework that comes with OS X Lion.
It sits in: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Uninstall.framework/Resources/uninstalld
What does it do? I don't know specifically, but here's what AppleInsider says (based on a blog entry here):
Additionally, the discovery of a new Uninstall.framework indicates that new Profile Server remote management tools (a feature of Lion Server for both Mac and iOS clients) will enable network administrators to remotely manage the software installed and removed on an organizations' machines, in addition to managing profiles (configuration files that are currently used to set up new iOS devices, and will in the future be used to set up Lion Macs).
slhck
Posted 2011-08-06T09:48:14.753
Reputation: 182 472
In addition: Do you have OS X Lion Server installed? And does it hurt your performance? – slhck – 2011-08-06T09:58:54.293
It is worth clarifying that, in most cases, so long as applications aren't competing for CPU time, it doesn't matter if one background process is using a lot. It's quite possible that it's running as a low priority process, in which case if you are running other things it should get out of your way, and not hurt perf at all.
With all that said, I do have to note that my install of OS X Lion (not the Server version) is not running uninstalld. I'm not quite sure why that is, but it's a bit weird. – Lukasa – 2011-08-06T10:47:48.527
@slhck I don't have OS X Lion Server installed. – Stephen Winnall – 2011-08-21T14:05:58.720
@Lukasa I suspect it's low priority. It also seems to come and go. It's not running at the moment, but I saw it again a couple of days ago. – Stephen Winnall – 2011-08-21T14:10:27.937
@Stephen I think you shouldn't worry about it. – slhck – 2011-08-21T14:11:16.720
I apologise for the delay in my replies to these answers: the notification landed in my spam trap... – Stephen Winnall – 2011-08-21T14:13:56.077
@slhck I'm not so much worried about it: I just like to know what my computer is up to :-) – Stephen Winnall – 2011-08-21T14:15:22.317
Once it starts, it tends to run at 100% CPU usage until I kill it. I don't notice any adverse effects from killing it. Using a whole core nonstop tends to eat my battery. – johnboiles – 2011-09-23T00:51:55.417