What do BCU.exe and BCUService actually do?

Question

I've got a Gigabyte G32M-ES2L motherboard with an Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 2.93GHz CPU running Windows XP SP3 (fully up to date).

Today when I booted the machine my firewall (Sygate Personal Firewall) warned me that BCUService.exe wanted to make a call out to the internet.

Wondering what they were I did a Google search and while I found out that these programs weren't malware, I didn't find out what they actually do. The information seemed to boil down to:

Part of Browser Configuration Utility Auto-recovery Service from DeviceVM, Inc. This program is not important for your system process, but should not be terminated unless suspected to be causing problems.

Source

The files are located in:

C:\Program Files\DeviceVM\Browser Configuration Utility

along with an sqlite3.dll indicating that there is a database in there somewhere.

Just to be clear this was the first time (possibly ever) that these programs had tried to "phone home".

So before I remove them from my system does anyone know what they actually do and its it worth them taking over 4Mb of memory? I've found a "readme.htm" file which states:

The Browser Configuration Utility is an easy-to-install, easy-to-use, powerful search engine.

but not much else about what it really does and how it does it.

Answer 1

Found 2 references to it on Asus and Gigabyte MB and a driver, sounding like payware loaded with a motherboard driver.

http://www.runscanner.net/lib/BCU.exe.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/268725-30-what-gigabyte-browser-configuration-utility

Seems to be harmless but I would remove the payware myself, Gigabyte gets paid to incorporate it into a driver, pretty sneaky if you ask me, no telling what else it does, it did try to phone home.

Answer 2

A quick google on DeviceVM Inc suggests that it is a company called Spashtop that changed their name from DeviceVM to Spashtop

See http://www.splashtop.com/press/devicevm-inc-officially-becomes-splashtop-inc

It looks like they do some remote desktop stuff that lets you see your PC on your iPad, which would not suprise me if this is what is running, and asking for internet access, and that they simply didn't change the software program name that is coming up with the alert you are seeing.

Answer 3

From the readme:

The Browser Configuration Utility is an easy-to-install, easy-to-use, powerful search engine. In addition, it lets you easily access on-line social games.

looks like it is crapware installed with my Gigabyte drivers.

Can be safely uninstalled from add/remove programs, filed under "Browser Configuration Utility".

I noticed it polls the registry regularly.