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After startup my machine has a lot of IO activity and if I open the start menu right after logging in, random sequences of s and . seem to be (emulated) key strokes sent to stdout showing up in the search field like in this screenshot:

enter image description here

How can I identify the source process?

  • I already ran a virus check on my drive from a safe boot media but nothing was found.

  • I'm only able to reproduce this after a cold boot, not a reboot.

  • I'm also not able to reproduce this booting in safe mode (minimal option).

Also I'm not able to catch chars by firing up notepad - the editor will simply loose focus there's no other trace.

Tarnay Kálmán
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Filburt
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1 Answers1

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As booting in Safe Mode fixed the problem, this indicates that some third-party application is responsible for it.

To locate the problematic application, you may use the free tool Autoruns for Windows.

This utility shows all programs configured to run during system bootup or login in its "Everything" tab. You may turn off startup items with a click and return them later with another click. You may avoid listing Microsoft products by using the menu Options > Hide Microsoft Entries, Hide Empty Locations and Hide Windows Entries

I would suggest turning off startup entries in bunches, drilling down to the startup program that causes this behavior. Once identified, it might have some setting that can avoid the problem, or can be left out of startup and only be invoked when required (verify that once invoked it does not add another startup entry, but such can again be disabled by Autoruns).

harrymc
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