Winsat Will Not Be Disabled Through Task Scheduler - Manual Delete?

Doctor Wrex · 23 Oct 2015

Hi. Winsat is running every day when I start my laptop, even though I disabled it in the task scheduler.

I can't figure out /why/ it's running, because it shouldn't be, let alone every day. It used to run never at all, that I was aware of. A month or so ago, it started popping up a command prompt window once a week. I disabled it in the task scheduler about two weeks ago, and it seemed to stop... now it's doing it every day.

How/why is this running despite being disabled in the scheduler? Can I delete the whole program? Because I do not give a crap about my WEI score, and all it seems to do is max out my hardware, which I don't think is good to be doing every day.

Thanks guys, <3 these forums!

EDIT:
Also, in the task scheduler, it says the last time it ran was 11 days ago... but i just watched it run today.

Another edit:
And I tried to run winsat by searching it in the startbar and activating it. I get a blip of a command prompt window and it's gone. not in the task manager, not using any hardware. Is that normal?

Callender · 23 Oct 2015

We do know something about a fake WAT popup. Hopefully that's not what you are seeing?

Windows Activation Technologies Pop-up

Doctor Wrex · 04 Dec 2015

Callender said:

We do know something about a fake WAT popup. Hopefully that's not what you are seeing?

Windows Activation Technologies Pop-up

I do not think that's what I was dealing with. It never asks for permission of any sort, just runs the thing in the command prompt. It seems that it's not doing it frequently anymore, and I suspect it may have had something to do with installing/reverting video drivers repeatedly due to nvidia releasing some problem drivers. I think it would run every time I changed the driver, so it might be legitimate. If that sounds normal, I think this thread is overdue to be marked as solved.

Callender · 05 Dec 2015

Okay well I'm guessing here. I think it seems likely that you have installed Windows Updates that add telemetry/ tracking or add the ability to upgrade to Windows 10.

Check this list and see which ones are installed. Consider removing them if found.

Code:

 KB3068708 Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
 KB3022345 Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
 KB2952664 Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7
 KB2990214 Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 7 to a later version of Windows
 KB3035583 Update installs Get Windows 10 app in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1
 KB3075249 Update that adds telemetry points to consent.exe in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7
 KB3080149 Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry

Open Task Scheduler. Under Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft delete the following items:

Everything under “Application Experience”
Everything under “Autochk”
Everything under “Customer Experience Improvement Program”
Under “Disk Diagnostic” delete only the “Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnosticDataCollector”
Under “Maintenance” “WinSAT”
“Media Center” and click the “status” column, then select all non-disabled entries and disable them.