I have 3 items in my Task Manager which appear to be consuming memory but, there is no detail about them.
My searches didn't provide anything useful, just advice how to add or remove a column!
I have done a recent full search with Kaspersky and Malware Bytes.
OS is up to date with Windows updates.
If I right click on Console Windows Host and select Open File location, Windows Explorer opens. If I right click on the "empty" entry and select Open File Location, then it does nothing (Windows Explorer is not launched). The same is true if I click Properties, there is no action taken.
Does this mean there is something wrong with my computer? How do I know what the processes are to investigate further?
EDIT
If I click on Show process form all users, the 3 items disappear, even if I return to just view my processes. However, if I restart Task Manager, the missing items return.
I restarted the PC, the items are there on load.
MSConfig doens't show anything unusual.
Image shows that it has a PID but no Image Path Name
3 Answers
That is normal. View the other columns to see what they are.
When first opened it is only showing processes from the current user and the few system processes visible to that user. It is running in a reduced privileges mode and can not retrieve additional information for SYSTEM processes. If you click the Show processes from all users button it gets increased privileges and can then show the additional information along with all processes. After that you can toggle the display on/off but it continues retrieving the information with the additional privileges so the information in question stays filled in.
I recommend installing Process Hacker. This is a task manager replacement that gives much more control and information about running tasks and services. You can double click on a task to get info about what the program is, where it is stored and even which company created it.
Additionally it will tell you which program launched it and you can directly click to view that, to find teh root cause.
The information it gives realy is a lot, including which users are and aren't allowed to start this.
Here's a screenshot of what you'd see:
This is rather suspicous, I would check that you have all the latest updates for your OS and also do a full scan of your computer with antivirus / malware scanner.
I would recommend Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and Microsoft Security Essentials.
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