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I'm using a PC running on Windows 11.
For weeks now, this same prompt has been popping up (with no observable pattern or trigger) every few hours or so: Select an app to open 'Learning', letting me choose from a bunch of applications, including 7-Zip Console, 7-Zip File Manager, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Reader, GIMP, Godot Engine, Google Chrome, Krita, etc.

  • Opening it with 7-Zip Console opens the console and very quickly terminates it again.
  • Opening with Google Chrome leads me to a "Your file couldn't be accessed" -- turns out what the prompt was trying to open is a file (or a directory?) with the path address C:/Users/User/Documents/Learning, which doesn't exist (can't locate said directory either).

The prompt is not intrusive. I can click anywhere outside the prompt window to make it go away, but the fact that it keeps coming back again and again irks me.

This happened after some sort of event -- I don't remember what exactly, but it had to do with some program crashing perhaps, and I'm wondering if the recurring prompt is some sort of remnant task that didn't get terminated properly when the program did.

I consulted ChatGPT (after looking this up on Google to no avail) and it suggested looking in Task Scheduler, but I could not find a task that triggered the opening of C:/Users/User/Documents/Learning.

Or I might be wrong: it might not be a leftover task from an improper termination. I don't know. I am not very well-versed in computers, truthfully.

If anyone could provide clues or point me in the right direction of fixing this, I'd really appreciate it.

Edit: clarification on the opening with 7-Zip Console part

Image of the popup prompt

Screenshot of "File couldn't be accessed" page in Chrome

xypha
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Colawithice
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1 Answers1

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I am the OP of the question, and I've just found the cause of the issue described.

I used Windows SysInternals' Process Monitor to track down whatever triggered the popup. It's particularly useful because it shows the exact time of day when each process occurs. Go to Filter > Filter or use Ctrl+L and add the following filters: Operation is Process Create then Include and Operation is Process Start then Include.

Then I used a screen recorder to record the exact moment the popup appeared, and tracked down the process created at that exact time. The command line of the process is: C:\windows\system32\OpenWith.exe ""C:\Users\User\Documents\Learning Python\scripts\some_script.py""

Long story short: some time ago, I created a scheduled task in Task Scheduler that automatically ran a Python script upon system startup, and after triggered, ran the script every 1 hour for the duration of 1 day. At some point I moved the script elsewhere, but forgot to update the target directory of the scheduled task. That explains the constant popups.

I've updated the automation; let's see how it goes.

Colawithice
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