Whenever you start Skype, which loads the process Skype.exe, another process named skypePM.exe is loaded. SkypePM.exe is the Plugin Manager of Skype that is always loaded during the start of Skype even if you are not using a single plugin in Skype. This is not really efficient considering that this process uses 15+ Megabytes of RAM for doing nothing at all.
There is however an easy way to get rid of the plugin manager process skypePM.exe. The first and probably best way is to simply rename or delete the folder Plugin Manager which is installed during the Skype installation. Skype from now on does not load the skypePM.exe process during startup which speeds it up quite a bit and does save RAM as well.
The folder was located on the same directory level as my Skype folder, not sure why it was not included in the Skype folder instead. If you can't locate it search for Plugin Manager directory.
The second method would be to uninstall Skype and install it again without the Plugin Manager. You will probably run into an error message called: “A network error occurred while attempting to read from the file C:\Windows\Installer\PluginManager.msi†which will appear if you moved or deleted the Skype Plugin Manager folder before.
You do need a Microsoft utilitiy called Windows Installer CleanUp Utility and remove the PluginManager.msi installation file using this tool. You run it twice. The first time scans all the files and the second time displays all known installation packages. Browse to the Skype Plugin Manager entry in the menu and remove it from there.
The installation of Skype will go through without error messages afterwards. Make sure you click on Options in the left lower corner of the installation window to uncheck Install Skype Extras Manager.
If you uncheck that box Skype will not install the Plugin Manager which will save you a good portion of RAM and make Skype start faster.
There is however an easy way to get rid of the plugin manager process skypePM.exe. The first and probably best way is to simply rename or delete the folder Plugin Manager which is installed during the Skype installation. Skype from now on does not load the skypePM.exe process during startup which speeds it up quite a bit and does save RAM as well.
The folder was located on the same directory level as my Skype folder, not sure why it was not included in the Skype folder instead. If you can't locate it search for Plugin Manager directory.
The second method would be to uninstall Skype and install it again without the Plugin Manager. You will probably run into an error message called: “A network error occurred while attempting to read from the file C:\Windows\Installer\PluginManager.msi†which will appear if you moved or deleted the Skype Plugin Manager folder before.
You do need a Microsoft utilitiy called Windows Installer CleanUp Utility and remove the PluginManager.msi installation file using this tool. You run it twice. The first time scans all the files and the second time displays all known installation packages. Browse to the Skype Plugin Manager entry in the menu and remove it from there.
The installation of Skype will go through without error messages afterwards. Make sure you click on Options in the left lower corner of the installation window to uncheck Install Skype Extras Manager.
If you uncheck that box Skype will not install the Plugin Manager which will save you a good portion of RAM and make Skype start faster.
