How can I find out what program keeps popping up in my taskbar and disappearing before I can click on it?
Summary: It's not uncommon to see programs quickly come and go. There are a few ways to try and capture what they are; some technical, and some innovative.
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How can I find out what program keeps popping up in my taskbar and disappearing before I can click on it? |
I've seen 'em too. You really start to wonder what the program is, and before you can even reach for your mouse, it's gone. Or even if you do manage to click on it, it disappears from view.
There are several techniques I use to track these guys down. Not all work in all cases, but between them all I can usually figure it out pretty quickly.
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I'll start with the relatively obvious: check what's starting when you login. A previous article, What's all this stuff running after I boot Windows? covers several of the techniques you can use to examine your system and determine all of the different programs and utilities that start each time you boot or login. You'll probably be surprised at how much there is. With that alone you may be able to say "oh yeah, that's it" when you stumble on something you didn't realize was starting on login.
If simply examining your startup doesn't give you any clues, my next approach would be to use SysInternals Process Explorer. Process Explorer actually highlights processes as they start and stop ... leaving them highlighted on its display for a few seconds after they exit. The only "trick" here is that you'll need to add Process Explorer to your start-up programs, and hopefully in a position that it starts and is running before the event you're attempting to diagnose.
I picked up this next trick from reading Fred Langa's LangaList: grab your video camera or digital camera and take a video of the screen as the item pops up and disappears. Now, watch that video in slow motion, or even frame by frame. You may now be able to discern the text in the task bar button, and use that as a clue to return to some of the techniques above. (This technique works great for error messages and blue screens that occasionally fly by as well.)
Finally, on Windows XP, 2000 and NT, you can also enable something called "process tracking". This will create a log of all processes that come and go on your machine. You may get overwhelmed with data, but the answer is almost certainly in the results. This article - How can I track what programs come and go on my machine? has the details.
Related:
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Ask Leo! - What's all this stuff running after I boot Windows?
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Ask Leo! - What are some good tech newsletters?
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SysInternals - Process Explorer
Article C2440 - October 18, 2005
You might also run Autoruns v8.22 also from SysInternals. It will show you what is started when you boot up. Most likely the thing that flashed is a program at start up rather then a service or something
Posted by: Daniel Ullman at October 19, 2005 9:02 AMhi i kee getting an internet explorer page comin up in my taskbar,with various websites. topfind.biz plus lot of others. i have used spybot search and destroy and spyhunter but they do not remove it my antivirus does not find any thing, i am using blueyonder pcguard, could you advise me as to what could be causing this kindest regards mr james guy
Posted by: james guy at May 30, 2006 8:47 AMSure sounds like spyware/malware of some sort that apparently your other scanners aren't catching. I'd look into Microsoft Defender as the next step, and also make sure that the databases used by your existing programs are up to date.
Posted by: Leo at May 30, 2006 9:13 AMWhen I try to install Directx9 I get internal error that says it can not find dxupdate.cpp and psheets.cpp files. What does this mean? How can I fix?
Posted by: fred at December 2, 2006 4:50 PMbefore i get on line the explorer sign keeps popping up and i keep deleting it and it still pops up. what do i do. how do i keep my homepage maximise also
Posted by: barbara huggins at January 5, 2008 4:16 PMA websitepage for Virus Heat popped up unwanted and has placed an icon blinking in my task bar. If you click on it it takes you to their website and I can't get rid of it in my task bar. It regularly pops up a stupid warning so it can try and get you to buy their product. I have defender, adaware, avast..nothing works any suggestions
Posted by: Pittman at April 8, 2008 11:15 AMIf the icon is a little gray square, it is Adobe Reader checking for updates. You can disable that, so it stops checking for updates. I had to be pretty quick to get the pointer over the icon to read what it was doing LOL!
Posted by: Carl R. Goodwin at October 21, 2008 7:44 PMhere's what I did to my XP machines (All 4 of them)
Posted by: Richard at October 22, 2008 10:52 PMusing the Task Manager:
1> create a shortcut to "Taskmgr.exe" in "startup"
2> set it to show the "processes" tab
3> set it to run in "normal window"
every time the pc is started the Task Manager pops up showing all running & loading processes and all the ones that load/unload can be seen also for that split second also.