[SOLVED] [SOLVED] cmd popped up for a split second at random. Windows-related scheduled task, perhaps?

[necroheadbanger]

So, I was watching anime some 30 minutes ago and a cmd window popped up for no more than 500ms, even less than that. First thing that came to my mind was "***** [Mod edit to redact profanity.
Remember that this is a Family friendly forum.] I got some malware", but I began checking around, and I couldn't really find anything out of place. Kaspersky returned a clean analysis, every time I download stuff I usually run a scan on it, so it didn't seem to be malware-related, unless it's perfect at camouflaging itself. I've already extensively checked my computer for malware in recent months and couldn't find anything.

I decided to check the Event Viewer and found a few logs from pretty much around the exact time the cmd appeared: one was a chkdsk event, followed by a few Security-SPP events which were seemingly checking Office's licenses. Other than that, the only event taking place at around the time of the cmd popping up were some BluePrism-related events with SQL loading some databases for whatever reason.

While this is the first time I see the cmd just pop up at random like that, for a good while now (months) I've seen my taskbar show up for a split second whenever I'm basically AFK watching anime, a video or other things in full-screen. To my memory, this has never happened while using the computer in general, as in web surfing or playing games. This time the cmd popped up along the taskbar and they both disappeared simultaneously, so I'm assuming it's a clear change of focus whenever the cmd pops up, but I can only imagine that all the previous times the cmd opened and closed extremely fast as for me to not be able to notice it at all.
I'm weirded out by this, the fact that no malware seems to have infected my computer leads me to believe that perhaps this is some sort of scheduled Windows event for when I'm AFK, and the cmd popping up might just be an issue related to this. I read a 2017 article about an Office background task popping up a cmd like this, and I am running an older version of Office (16.0.17531.20152), and it seems to have been fixed as of 16.0.8201.2025, so perhaps it's that?

Thoughts?

EDIT: My specs are an i3-10105f, AMD RX 6600, and 32 gigs of DDR4 RAM (2x16), by the way.

EDIT 2: I solved the issue, it turned out to be CCleaner's Crash Reporting, it ran daily at the same time of day.

 

[Colif]

did it only happen once?

Cause it might have been nothing. Could have been a program update.

you might be wasting time over nothing.

did you look in reliability history? it could have been an update from microsoft store.


right click start button

choose powershell (admin)

copy/paste this command into window:

Repair-WindowsImage -Online -RestoreHealth

and press enter

Then type SFC /scannow

and press enter

Restart PC if SFC fixes any files as some fixes require a restart to be implemented

First command repairs the files SFC uses to clean files, and SFC fixes system files

SFC = System File Checker. First command runs DISM - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/what-is-dism?view=windows-11

 

[necroheadbanger]

did it only happen once?

Cause it might have been nothing. Could have been a program update.

you might be wasting time over nothing.

did you look in reliability history? it could have been an update from microsoft store.

It is the first time I notice a cmd opening up like that. The taskbar flashing for a split second while watching anime happens pretty much daily, and once again, only when I am basically AFK. So, I can only guess the cmd might also open up at those times but I just don't see it because it's done in less than 100ms or something.

As for the reliability history, there is nothing out of the ordinary in it.

 

[Colif]

Try a clean boot and see if it changes anything - make sure to read instructions and make sure NOT to disable any microsoft services or windows won't load right - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

It doesn’t delete anything, it just stops non Microsoft programs running with start. Easy to reverse.

if clean boot fixes it, it shows its likely a startup program. You should, over a number of startups. restart the programs you stopped to isolate the one that is to blame.

 

[onespeedbiker]

Found this on microsoft.answers.com. This can occur with laptops.

"Some scheduled tasks may have been executed once you switched to AC power. Some tasks could have been configured to run only when on AC power."

Regardless here is a method to check the recently ran cmd tasks.

"A good way to check what tasks are causing this pop-up you can open PowerShell and run a command to check recently ran tasks and then just check the time of the pop-up to the times on the tasks and you will find your culprit".

To check recently ran tasks I used the following command in PowerShell

Get-ScheduledTask | Get-ScheduledTaskInfo | select TaskName, TaskPath, LastRunTime | out-gridview

 

[necroheadbanger]

Found this on microsoft.answers.com. This can occur with laptops.

"Some scheduled tasks may have been executed once you switched to AC power. Some tasks could have been configured to run only when on AC power."

Regardless here is a method to check the recently ran cmd tasks.

"A good way to check what tasks are causing this pop-up you can open PowerShell and run a command to check recently ran tasks and then just check the time of the pop-up to the times on the tasks and you will find your culprit".

To check recently ran tasks I used the following command in PowerShell

Get-ScheduledTask | Get-ScheduledTaskInfo | select TaskName, TaskPath, LastRunTime | out-gridview

I'm not on a laptop.

In any case, I found the culprit: it was CCleaner's crash reporting, it is scheduled to run daily at 2:50.

 

[Colif]

i should have closed this yesterday after you mentioned it in Discord.