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I have windows 7 and this is running in the background.

Using process explorer, I can see most of the DLLs are named, but two are unsigned called locale.nls an SortDefault.nls. One has no description OLEAUT32.DLL.

What are these files, what do they mean, and should I be concerned if they are lacking descriptions?

I have never heard of an .nls file.

The Intel homepage is no help. Intel(R) Matrix Storage Driver

I would imagine this is part of the whole RAID setup, but I do not even know if I need to be running RAID if I am running WAMP or not.

Is this something I can uninstall, or would it be recommended to keep this? (I have an Intel Atom N450.)

Hennes
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Talvi Watia
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4 Answers4

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Intel Matrix Storage Manager is basically a piece of software that communicates with the Intel I/O Controller / SATA ports in order to give you an overview of what is happening. (And RAID status if it is setup)

There should be a separate program that can graphically tell you what is plugged into each port.

On top of this, it can "sometimes" make your machine go faster under certain circumstances - it installs some funky I/O drivers that increase access times. During benchmarking, I noted a increase of around 9% using it - However, it was also responsible for severe BSODs on Vista. I guess they would have fixed that by now.

As for WAMP, RAID is always recommended on servers (for quick rebuild) but it has nothing to do (directly) with Intel Matrix Storage Manager

William Hilsum
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    I found the associated utility program. It seems sort of useless, as the same information (and more) can be found in device manager. Is there any reason why I need to have this running in the background? – Talvi Watia Jul 31 '10 at 12:42
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    Yes, the I/O drivers can be faster than the Windows generic I/O drivers. The only real way to test is to benchmark your machine with and without it. – William Hilsum Jul 31 '10 at 17:36
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I had problems with audio and video playback on my Dell Inspiron 1750 Notebook computer. It was driving me nuts because it was so annoying! I was ready to buy a new laptop until I found something on the web about disabling Intel Matrix Storage Manager. I disabled it and playback is fine now for video and audio!!! OH HAPPY DAYS!!!!! Brad. PS: And my computer runs just fine thank you.

Brad
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The files locale.nls and SortDefault.nls appear to contain locale data for Windows.

Microsoft Locale Builder and intl.cpl read SortDefault.nls primarily but not locale.nls.

Deleting either %SystemRoot%\System32\locale.nls or %SystemRoot%\Globalization\Sorting\SortDefault.nls causes a BSoD.

XP1
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Quick search gives results for .nls. It appears to be Code Page National Language Support file. It was used in DOS era.

As for OLEAUT32.DLL, it's part of Windows. Here's a description: http://www.auditmypc.com/process/oleaut32.asp

As you yourself found out, Matrix storage manager is part of Intel's drivers. It would be safest to let it be installed.

As far as RAID is concerned, take a look here. Having RAID and running WAMP are not actually related. It'd be nice if you could use a nice, large and safe array for WAMP, but it's not required.

AndrejaKo
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