What is ctfmon.exe and how to remove it

Posted on February 18, 2009 at 5:46 am

I recently learned about a process running on my computer named CTFMON.EXE because whenever I would restart my computer, it would hang and I would have to end the program by killing the process. Pretty annoying!

So what is ctfmon.exe? It’s actually a process that always runs in the background and that monitors the active program in case the program needs support for speech recognition, handwriting recognition, or other alternative user input services.

If you are not using the Language bar in Windows XP and you are not using any kind of alternative input device, like a pen tablet, then you really do not need this process running.

So how can you remove ctfmon.exe from the running process list? You can always kill it using Task Manager or try to uncheck it using MSCONFIG, but it will always come back. To remove it properly, follow the steps below.

Remove ctfmon.exe for Office XP, 2003 users

If you are running Office 2003 or Office XP, you need to remove it from within the Office setup dialog. You can do this by going to the Control Panel, clicking on Add/Remove Programs and then clicking Change next to the Microsoft Office entry.

Now click on Add/Remove Features and then click Continue. Now click on the + next to Office Shared Features.

Now click on the icon next to Alternative User Input and choose Not Available. Click Update to finish.

Remove ctfmon.exe for Office 2007 users

If you are running Office 2007, you will notice that Alternative User Input is not an option user Office Shared Features. So to get rid of the process when using Office 2007, you need to turn off advanced text services. Here is how you do that.

First, go to the Control Panel and choose Regional and Language Options. Now click on the Details button under Text services and input languages on the Languages tab.

Now click on the Advanced tab and check the Turn off advanced text services box.

Now click OK and OK again to save the changes. Finally, you have to unregister the DLL file that is associated with alternative user input.

Whichever method you used above to uninstall the ctfmon program, you need to run the following commands by going to Start, Run and typing this below:

Regsvr32.exe /u msimtf.dll

Regsvr32.exe /u msctf.dll

Now restart your computer and you should no longer see the ctfmon.exe process running in Windows Task Manager.

» Filed Under MS Office Tips

Comments

6 Responses to “What is ctfmon.exe and how to remove it”

happy user said on : February 20th, 2009 at 10:09 am

THANKS!!! I haven’t restarted yet, but hopefully this does exactly what it should. Thanks for the info, I’ve always wondered what the heck it was…. I came to the site via Lifehacker’s recent article about SmartArt. Keep up the good work, I’m sure your servers are getting slammed.

classact said on : February 20th, 2009 at 7:58 pm

Thank you for demystifying the system program ctfmon.exe. Previously, I had no idea what it was. Many thanks!

Bill Bennett said on : February 20th, 2009 at 9:24 pm

Great tip. But I’m running Vista and my control panel doesn’t look anything like the one displayed (for dealing with Office 2007). It’s not obvious how this would work with Vista.