Conhost exe

[marieann]

I have 26 instances of conhost.exe running at the moment. It's slowing the laptop down. Yesterday there were close to 300 and when it first happened a few days ago there were 240. The only thing I can do is to restart the laptop which clears them for a while.

I have AVG with firewall and Spysweeper automatically running scans every day and they are clear. Today I've also scanned with Spybot and Adaware and neither of them have found anything.

The only thing I can think of is that I installed Dragon Naturally Speaking just before the problems began and when it's started up it scatters icons all over the desktop to clear spaces for itself. That's probably nonsense but I can't think of anything else that's affected the desktop.

Can anyone think of anything more I can try please? It isn't that it's causing problems, apart from the slowness, I can correct it by a simple restart but it's really annoying.

 

[richc46]

Download and scan with malwarebytes, full scan and updated
It can be a legit process, but there should not be so many.
What is conhost.exe and Why Is It Running? - How-To Geek

One instance is normal, per the above aticle. But 300? Make sure it is not malware by using Malwarbytes. Once that is known, we can move at a slower pace to try and solve the problem

Here is another link indicating that it may be a problem. DO NOT FOLLOW ANY ADVICE GIVEN ON THAT SITE they are trying to sell software.
Just want to show you that it may be a problem
http://www.thestubware.com/def/201008/conhost.php

 

[marieann]

I've scanned with Malwarebytes and it's found nothing. Thank you for the reply when I looked it up a few days ago I didn't find anything that suggested it was a virus or trojan. I can wipe the hard drive and reinstall the operating system but I'd rather not if I can avoid it.

 

[richc46]

Bring up task manager (right click on task bar) and take a screen shot of what is in process.

 

[marieann]

I'm embarrassed to have to say I have 169 processes running it just isn't possible to take screen shots. I can give you the running processes from the adaware log of today's scan if that will do. There were about 150 then.

 

[richc46]

What happens if you bring up task manger and right click and then turn off process?

 

[marieann]

I'm sorry I don't know what you mean by turning off process.

 

[marieann]

Yes, I do know and I haven't tried that I'll do it now.

 

[marieann]

It won't let me it says access is denied.

 

[richc46]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

 

[marieann]

It says 'Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.'

I'm in the Northeast of England and it's 2.30AM so reluctantly I need to stop now. Should I try System Restore tomorrow?

 

[richc46]

Only of you know when problem started. Then go back 5 days before. You have to be sure its not a virus, before using system restore or you could put the virus into system restore, too

 

[mborner]

The big question of the day is, where did you download Dragon Naturally Speaking from? If it was installed from a disk, was the disk an ISO copy or was it OEM, new? If it was downloaded from the internet, it would be pretty critical to know where it came from.

 

[marieann]

For some reason I downloaded dragon Naturally Speaking from their website, all 2gb of it, and it took about 8 hours. I did order a backup disc so I can uninstall.

 

[marieann]

Only of you know when problem started. Then go back 5 days before. You have to be sure its not a virus, before using system restore or you could put the virus into system restore, too

I downloaded the latest version of Stinger which found nothing so decided to have a look on the Microsoft seven forum. They've heard about it but so far don't have a solution or a reason. Someone seemed pretty certain it was being caused by itunes which I had installed two weeks ago so I've uninstalled that and restarted the laptop. So far today there is no sign of conhost exe on the running processes. So I still have no idea whether it's a virus or not.

Multiple instances (dozens) of conhost.exe running. Windows 7 Pro (32-bit)
This is the thread on the Microsoft forum.

 

[richc46]

Virus or not it was using all your ram.

 

[marieann]

Yes, I noticed yesterday there were times when the memory usage went up to almost 80%. It's showing on task manager at the moment but just one of it so far. I honestly have no idea what to do now apart from waiting to see if uninstalling itunes works.

 

[richc46]

LOL
Virus by any other name is still a virus.

 

[marieann]

Update. It started multiplying faster which meant I was having to restart more often and windows seemed to be crashing more frequently so yesterday I reinstalled Windows 7. After 24 hours there is no sign of Conhost exe. on Task Manager. I don't see why there should be I have no idea what a console window is and why would I ever do a Command Prompt?