Mysterious Programs Running at Startup

I sporadically get unexpected "need to update" warnings from various programs. Right now, the laptop on which I'm typing this message gave a warning, after waking up from hibernation, from "Auslogics Driver Updater" asserting that several drivers need updating.

I don't see this program in my list of programs, from either the Control Panel "programs" applet, nor from IOBit Uninstaller. I don't find it in the startup programs, nor do I see it buried in Task Scheduler. Ditto for services.msc unless it's named something I'm not noticing.

Other programs that I do recognize behave similarly: sporadic "program can be updated" warnings yet no sign of them in the startup items , the task scheduler, or the services..

What am I overlooking?: How else can something be auto-initiated? These are x64 Win10 pro machines.

Art

While my assertions and question holds true for several programs, it turns out - upon clicking on the Auslogics message and reading the message in the resultant window - that this is for a REMOTE machine - my Windows Home Server box. The message must be being broadcast to all the machines in my home network.

Anyway, that's a great idea - I hadn't used Autoruns in quite some time; I'll download it and see what it says. Thanks for the suggestion.

ArtShapiro said:

...it turns out - upon clicking on the Auslogics message and reading the message in the resultant window - that this is for a REMOTE machine - my Windows Home Server box. The message must be being broadcast to all the machines in my home network.

Anyway, that's a great idea - I hadn't used Autoruns in quite some time; I'll download it and see what it says. Thanks for the suggestion.

You'll need to run it on your Windows Home Server box, as that's where it appears to be installed. This is seemingly verging on malware, you could usefully scan with AdwCleaner.

Bree said:

You'll need to run it on your Windows Home Server box,

Of course. It was a routinely-installed program on the WHS box, so as I have another sporadically-run driver check program on that box, I simply removed it. Still have to look to see if Autoruns finds some of the other unexpectedly-run programs on the other machine(s).