Thanks, great post!
What is the Program program showing up in Windows 8 Task Manager Startup tab?
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Anonymous
I just purchased a new HP desktop. Windows 8 is installed. I've had it for about three weeks. I haven't installed much so far...printer drivers, Acrobat Reader, Google Chrome, VLC Media Player, Open Office, and Quicken 2012 are all I can think of.
About two weeks ago I noticed that in the Startup tab of Task Manager there is an application listed named "Program." The publisher column is blank. The Status column shows "Enabled." The Startup impact column shows "Not measured." When I right click on the listing I have the options to "Disable" and "Search online"; the "Properties" and "Open file location" options are grayed out. So, I disabled the "Program" program. Since then I've not noticed any lack of functionality, but Norton Internet Security did crash once; otherwise I seem to have a stable system and everything seems to work.
Still, I want to know what this "Program" program is. I've searched my system to the best of my ability using all utilities that came installed. I've also searched the Registry using regedit; nothing. Finally, today, I downloaded Sysinternals' (a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation) Autoruns. Nothing again.
I'd appreciate any help to track this down. What is it? And, if I don't need it how can I get rid of it? Thanks!
Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
68 answers
Sort by: Newest
-
Anonymous
2017-08-05T02:19:31+00:00 -
Anonymous
2016-12-30T11:40:36+00:00 Did you remove all files they pasted? I had to go in ProgramData and Users/AppData to erase portions. In addition, they may have not done the job required to properly fix it.
I did not delete any files. I just run Autoruns64.exe as explained earlier in this thread. I deleted all entries in Autoruns64 showing a missing file statement in the column Image path.
It appears to me that some programs doesn't install/de-install correctly (Lenovo stuff in my case) and forget to remove the autorun commands for deleted files!
Sorry for my poor English, but once you have sorted it out, maybe you can rephrase it better than I.
Hope it helps
-
Anonymous
2016-12-29T22:37:16+00:00 Did you remove all files they pasted? I had to go in ProgramData and Users/AppData to erase portions. In addition, they may have not done the job required to properly fix it.
-
Anonymous
2016-12-29T22:14:25+00:00 Did not help me sadly. This was done by GeekSquad, and still issues persists..
-
Anonymous
2016-12-28T18:22:54+00:00 Hi,
I had exactly the same problem ... I was thinking it was a Virus. But I run Autoruns and deleted all entries with -file not found ---- in the image path and problem immediately solved !
Hope it helps