What is autoruns.exe doing on my computer?

autoruns.exe is a process associated with Sysinternals autoruns from Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com.
Non-system processes like autoruns.exe originate from software you installed on your system. Since most applications store data on your hard disk and in your system's registry, it is likely that your computer has suffered fragmentation and accumulated invalid entries which can affect your PC's performance.

In Windows Task Manager, you can see what CPU, memory, disk and network utilization is causing the SysInternals Autostart Program Viewer process. To access the Task Manager, hold down the Ctrl Shift Esc keys at the same time. These three buttons are located on the far left of your keyboard.

The autoruns.exe is an executable file on your computer's hard drive. This file contains machine code. If you start the software Sysinternals autoruns on your PC, the commands contained in autoruns.exe will be executed on your PC. For this purpose, the file is loaded into the main memory (RAM) and runs there as a SysInternals Autostart Program Viewer process (also called a task).

Is autoruns.exe harmful?

This process is considered safe. It is unlikely to pose any harm to your system. The autoruns.exe file should be located in the folder �sktop%\Autoruns. Otherwise it could be a Trojan.

Can I stop or remove autoruns.exe?

Many non-system processes that are running can be stopped because they are not involved in running your operating system. autoruns.exe is used by 'Sysinternals autoruns'. This is an application created by 'Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com'.

If you no longer use Sysinternals autoruns, you can permanently remove this software and thus autoruns.exe from your PC. To do this, press the Windows key R at the same time and then type 'appwiz.cpl'. Then find Sysinternals autoruns in the list of installed programs and uninstall this application.

Is autoruns.exe CPU intensive?

This process is not considered CPU intensive. However, running too many processes on your system may affect your PC’s performance. To reduce system overload, you can use the Microsoft System Configuration Utility (MSConfig) or the Windows Task Manager to manually find and disable processes that launch upon start-up.

Use the Windows Resource Monitor to find out which processes and applications write/read the most on the hard drive, send the most data to the Internet, or use the most memory. To access the Resource Monitor, press the key combination Windows key R and then enter 'resmon'.

Why is autoruns.exe giving me errors?

Most autoruns issues are caused by the application executing the process. The surest way to fix these errors is to update or uninstall this application. Therefore, please search the Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com website for the latest Sysinternals autoruns update.