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So I am having a fairly interesting problem here. Just recently I started having a console window pop up on my desktop, flash for a fraction of a second, then vanish. I can't seem to figure out where it's coming from, either. It seems to pop up at intervals of perhaps fifteen minutes or so. I've noticed it when I'm coding in Visual Studio, and it has even been booting me to desktop while I play some games.

Now, this question is more about how I should hunt and destroy it. You see, because it's lifetime is so short, it's almost impossible to pinpoint. I've tried looking in my startup, but everything was set to disabled.

I also tried looking through the currently running programs(Won't help if it's not running, though). And I even looked through my services to see if I could spot anything that's starting up. I'm at a loss here. So can someone tell me how I can detect this console application, kill it, and stop it from annoying me?

And, yes, I have ran Avast, and Malwarebytes...they say I'm clean... But that's no surprise because I can't remember the last time I actually had malware on my computer. Despite this, I'm still tagging this question as both Malware and Virus, because I'm at a loss for figuring out what it is.

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    Here is a print out of my services, I apologize because it is one big wall of text. You may need to copy and paste it into Notepad++ to make it readable. pastebin.com/f9Wja7UV
    – Krythic
    Commented Apr 30, 2017 at 6:22
  • Trying to decide how to isolate this ive had a similar issue in the past and it was a program running a short script which would bring me to the desktop. Could possibly try and use something like This It may be able to collect the data you need. Just start recording when the time it does it happens mark that then go look and see if you can trace the culprit.
    – NetworkKingPin
    Commented Apr 30, 2017 at 6:28
  • @NetworkKingPin I'll take a look. Basically I need something that logs processes as they start and end. I could even write this myself, I suppose. If I could at least figure out what the console is called, I could easily kill it. It's just too quick for me to get a good look at it.
    – Krythic
    Commented Apr 30, 2017 at 6:30
  • @Luke Can you elaborate? I'm programming a game engine in wpf. Been doing it for over a year, problem started last month, give or take.
    – Krythic
    Commented Apr 30, 2017 at 6:53
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    Also, have a look in Task Scheduler if there's anything not recognized over there.
    – Yisroel Tech
    Commented Apr 30, 2017 at 7:09

1 Answer 1

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Process Monitor will log everything that is happening on the computer. You can then by setting filters reduce the displayed results to those that are of interest.

You may locate the launch of the console by filtering for "Process name" that "Ends with" the string "cmd.exe" (disable all other filters that are defined by default). This may give you enough information to start tracking the problem.

For more information, see the How-to Geek tutorial Understanding Process Monitor.

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