[SOLVED] Programs randomly background running

[Zaiku]

I've recently noticed an increasingly annoying issue that seems to affect more programs every other week.

It started with Windows OOBE Service - I followed a guide to completely disable this which just simply did not work (disabling it in task scheduler and removing autorun registries)
Every now and then, it just randomly opens in my task manager and sits running without my permission, it used to be maybe once every couple days, but now it seems to be hourly.

Since then, this issue has spread to the automatic background running of Photos, Calculator always with two instances, Acrobat Services, XBox Game Bar even though it is disabled and Your Phone which I often find myself closing up to 30 times a day! I close these programs in task manager and not even 10 minutes later some will have come back on without me using anything even remotely related to them.

I've checked the services list, regedit for autorun entries, task scheduler and even gone as far as to run 3rd party software to look for unwanted auto runs and can find nothing that should be causing this.

 

[Colif]

So i take it you disabled them all in settings/privacy/background apps?

Its possible one of the other non human users on your PC is running them. Users such as System, Trustedinstaller, Network service, Local Service, to name but a few. Windows has a stack of users it uses to do the tasks for you. So your permission isn't required for windows to do its thing or you would never get anything done.

 

[Zaiku]

Thanks for this suggestion, somehow this is the ONE place I didn't think to go through.
I've just disabled a whole bunch of stuff in there now, need to find out in time if this has worked or not.
Unfortunately, I still haven't been able to find any entry for the OOBE Service, and the only thing I can find searching online is still to disable it in the task scheduler.

Update:
OOBE Broker started running again just after I posted this.

Update again:
Not sure how several guides online missed this, but it can be disabled by going into;
Settings > System > Notifications & Actions
then switching off "Show me the Windows welcome experience after updates..."
I also disabled "Suggest ways I can finish setting up my device..." just to be sure.

Testing to see if this puts an end to my little issue continues.
Resolution trophy likely inbound for Colif if this has completely worked.

Final update:
The above solution worked for the auto running of everything except OOBE Broker
To stop OOBE Broker, I'm trying both the change of settings as listed in my last update alongside the sfc scan in command prompt and also the DISM scan.

 

[Colif]

Not sure how several guides online missed this, but it can be disabled by going into;
Settings > System > Notifications & Actions
then switching off "Show me the Windows welcome experience after updates..."
I also disabled "Suggest ways I can finish setting up my device..." just to be sure.

i forgot about that reminder, i just used it myself to turn off the blue screen that sometimes shows at start-up and asks you set up a PIN

 

[Colif]

Most of the processes you mention run suspended in ram

Modern UWP (metro) apps are suspended by an svchost process that controls UWP app power states. This is done to save system resources, like energy and cpu usage. UWP apps are coded to allow this, that’s why you don’t see traditional Win32 programs going into a suspended state.
Apps can also be suspended in the background when their not open because windows can see that you use those apps a lot, so when you open then next time, they’ll just resume and be right back up. The svchost process that does this usually can be identified if UWP programs are the child processes of it, or find an instance of svchost that host the service DCOM, system events broker, and power.

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-a-lot-of-my-applications-suspended-on-the-Task-Manager-on-Windows-10

So they weren't running, they were just there for next time you did run them.
I noticed I have oobe suspended as well.