I'm with dalchina on this. The most probable reason is that the 'notepad.exe' that's running is in fact malware hiding under the Notepad name. Have you looked at its Properties in Task Manager and compared it with the genuine example dalchina gave?
Right click the entry in question to see if you can open it's file location:
Last edited by Edwin; 12 Oct 2017 at 03:45.
SFC /Scannow will not fix a malware problem, assuming that's what it is. You need to run appropriate malware detection software. Google research can suggest which may be appropriate.
Hi, please post screenshots like this:
The second is what I see if I click Open File Location.
Your screenshot of Task Manager and the notepad.exe properties shows the same size and creation date as in @dalchina's earlier screenshot. So it looks like it is the real notepad that's running.
But - it isn't running the way it should. In your Task Manager there should be a > to the left of notepad, and clicking on it should open up a list of the Notepad instances that are running, along with the name of the document that's open (or 'Untitled - Notepad' if none).
Yours doesn't show that (compare it with dalchina's screenshot). Notepad is running - yes, but not the way it's supposed to. It appears to be in the list of background processes, not in the list of Apps where it should be. Could something be trying to run it as a service? Perhaps some malware set this up, but failed to replace the genuine notepad.exe with its counterfeit one?
As a first step I'd look at the Startup tab in Task Manager for clues.
I can reproduce this (though not the high cpu use).
Without logging out I switched to another user, opened Notepad, then switched back to the first user. Task Manager shows the other user's Notepad running as a background process, but it's not shown in my Apps because it's not me that's running Notepad.
Do you have any other users signed in at the same time as you? Have a look at Task Manager's Users tab. You will also see Notepad along with the user name running it on Task Manager's Details tab.
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