Black window flashing up every hour

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Behodar

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#214851 31-May-2017 14:05

Hi all,

I'm running Win 7 on my work machine and since Monday I've noticed a black window (probably a command-line app) flashing up for a fraction of a second every hour (technically it seems to be about every 60:00:00.5 as it's drifted by ~20 seconds over the last couple of days). I don't see anything relevant in Task Scheduler and Google isn't finding much of use - one suggestion was to check "BITS" via PowerShell and there were four failed jobs in there, but deleting them had no effect. The window disappears so quickly that I don't get a chance to read its title.

Interestingly a friend has reported the same issue to me, apparently also starting a few days ago. Has anyone else run into this? It looks like it could be a side effect of a Windows update (KB4019990?).

Any suggestions on what could be causing this?

rb99

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#1792356 31-May-2017 14:12

Have also seen the occasional flash of a window, but don't think its every hour and am on the latest Windows 10. No sign of that update in my updates list, unless there's a related Win 10 update in there somewhere. No idea what it is.

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

rb99

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geocom

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#1792359 31-May-2017 14:14

Interestingly having the same sort of thing happening on my windows 10 laptop only started happening only a few days ago not sure if it is every hour as I have not timed it but that sounds about right.

Have not had time to go digging into it would be interested to know if anyone else has before I go spending hours doing so.

Geoff E

Behodar

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#1792364 31-May-2017 14:23

rb99: No sign of that update in my updates list, unless there's a related Win 10 update in there somewhere. No idea what it is.

I just looked at MS' site and 4019990 isn't available for Win 10. There may, of course, be a similar update with a different number!

MikeB4

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#1792366 31-May-2017 14:24

Try this

https://mspoweruser.com/heres-how-to-fix-that-annoying-command-prompt-popup-window-in-windows/

rb99

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#1792371 31-May-2017 14:30

Looks rather interesting...

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

rb99

bairdo

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#1792377 31-May-2017 14:46

I've had a similar problem on windows 10 and have tracked it down to the Microsoft Office Background updater.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_officeinsider-mso_win10/officebackgroundtaskhandlerregistration-flashes-a/2600497e-78e4-41a1-9040-461cd2c3ea13

Looks like there is a fix in the Slow Insiders program

Behodar

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#1792382 31-May-2017 14:55

MikeB4:

Try this

https://mspoweruser.com/heres-how-to-fix-that-annoying-command-prompt-popup-window-in-windows/

Thanks for that; I forgot that Task Scheduler had a folder hierarchy so I missed that one. It's due to happen again in 6 minutes' time, so let's see what happens :)

MikeAqua

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#1792383 31-May-2017 14:57

I see this occasionally in W8.1.

Mike

michaelmurfy

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#1792384 31-May-2017 14:59

I was seeing this - making the updater task run as "system" instead of "local user" gets rid of the annoying popup window and still allows for the task to run successfully.

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Behodar

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#1792387 31-May-2017 15:01

Behodar:

MikeB4:

Try this

https://mspoweruser.com/heres-how-to-fix-that-annoying-command-prompt-popup-window-in-windows/

Thanks for that; I forgot that Task Scheduler had a folder hierarchy so I missed that one. It's due to happen again in 6 minutes' time, so let's see what happens :)

Success! Thanks again :)

nzkiwiman

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#1792402 31-May-2017 15:30

Thanks for posting this.

I've been seeing this on my home system (W10 1607), very noticeable when watching a full screen VLC "movie". Last time it happened I took note of the time and when I saw it again an hour later I said to myself I must investigate .. and then promptly forgot

I must look at the above links at home and see if my issue is related (I have Office 2016 installed)

nzkiwiman

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#1793173 1-Jun-2017 15:11

^ Found the offending task and disabled it

Was set to run every hour at 20 minutes past the hour

neb

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#1794990 5-Jun-2017 17:54

Behodar:
I'm running Win 7 on my work machine and since Monday I've noticed a black window (probably a command-line app) flashing up for a fraction of a second every hour (technically it seems to be about every 60:00:00.5 as it's drifted by ~20 seconds over the last couple of days).

It's MsMpEng. It's a bug in one of the recent updates, more recent ones from within the last day or two seem to fix it. You may need to restart the machine where it's happening to clear it.