ielowutil.exe mystery solved

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Tom172

Level 1
Feb 11, 2011
1,009
Typing in "ielowutil.exe explanation" into google returns your post on the first page so it may help alot of people :)
 

Mystii

New Member
Jul 28, 2011
1
Dieselman said:
Here is a helpful hint I discovered myself so I thought I share it with you.

After installing IE 9 and using it for about a week I went back to Firefox 3.5.6. then eventually to FF 4.0. So I never went back to IE ever again. But for some odd reason ielowutil.exe would magically appear. I didn't think much of it at first. So one day I was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. I opened up my trusty Process Hacker and explored everything about ielowutil.exe. The parent program of course is IE. But the fact that I never opened IE made it even more odd. So I did some research for about an hour and came up with nothing.

So I went into Process Hackers settings and enabled all the system tray features which basically tells you who started who,when and where. I sat and watch my laptop for about an hour at idle. When ielowutil.exe started it was triggered by Feeds and Web Slices. I was like .............."What?". So I went into internet options\content\feeds and web slices\settings. In there I unchecked "automatically check feeds and web slices for updates". I also unchecked everything else in there.

Presto................Problem gone. So exactly what was going on? Well it turns out that ielowutil.exe is a prefetcher for feeds and web slices. That was about 2 weeks ago and ielowutil.exe has never mysteriously appeared on its own again. Hope this helps some members and also you can learn how Process Hacker can be used as a diagnostic tool.

If I turn off 'checkfeeds and web slices for updates' I noticed that the newsreader gadget no longer updates. I like that little reader, so I guess I'll live with ielowutil.exe running once in a while LOL.

FYI, my system is a Win7, 64 bit computer with 8Gig of Ram. I'm not really worried about the process, I just wanted to know what it was doing and why it was running. I don't use IE at all anymore. After years of being an IE user, I completely converted to Chrome as soon as it was available. I'll never go back. Shame there isn't some process unrelated to IE that could do the feed updates.
 

ScammedByAdaware

New Member
Jun 25, 2012
1
Dieselman, Thanks! ielowutil.exe just showed up today for the first time on my "Task Manager". A quick check for it on Google showed me your post. Problem solved.
 

Helpthehelpers

New Member
Oct 8, 2012
1
9genva.jpg
please help MEEE
 

Jack

Administrator
Verified
Staff Member
Well-known
Jan 24, 2011
9,378
Helpthehelpers said:
9genva.jpg
please help MEEE

Hello Helpthehelpers,
As Dieselman originally suggested, please follow this steps:
1.Start Internet Explorer,click on the Gear icon and then select "Internet Options"
0A3Lx.png

2.Click on the Content tab and then Feed and Web Slices field select Settings.
ZX5jc.png

3.In the Feed and Web Slices window,uncheck all the boxes.Click OK and then Apply
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4.Restart your browser.
 

Ink

Administrator
Verified
Staff Member
Well-known
Jan 8, 2011
22,361
And then you could terminate (ie. End Task) all ielowutil.exe processes from the Task Manager.
 

the1observant

New Member
Jul 27, 2017
1
... So I went into internet options\content\feeds and web slices\settings. In there I unchecked "automatically check feeds and web slices for updates". I also unchecked everything else in there.

Presto................Problem gone. So exactly what was going on? Well it turns out that ielowutil.exe is a prefetcher for feeds and web slices. ...

I finally caught ielowutil.exe running in Win10 for the first time today and was trying to figure out what it was, and why it was running. The most helpful search results sent me here. So I registered for the purpose of stopping by and saying - THANK YOU! Dieselman (whether you see this or not).

And you're right. When the msfeed sync runs, so does the ielow utility, which appears to be low-level security for fetching the feed updates. I also noticed turning off the feed features also cleans up the Task Scheduler a little bit. I had been debating whether to disable it that way, which I probably could, but don't have to now since the Internet Options interface did it for me and totally removed it. I don't use feeds anyway, in fact, I hardly ever use IE to begin with unless I have to.

But anywho, Bless you for the helpful info, so I didn't have to dig too deep, lol.
 
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