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I have Acer Aspire One A521 with brand new SSD disk, on which I've just installed brand new Windows 7 HE 64. After installing system I installed all drivers, including Conexant audio driver. Starting from that moment, after each system restart I see Windows prompt asking me, if I really want to run application C:\Program Files\CONEXANT\cAudioFilterAgent\cAudioFilterAgent64.exe.

Situation like that is quite normal to me, and I always use some "startup scanner" to find such software and purge system out of it. I have very, very old Startup Control Panel 2.8 by Mike Lin. It can have even ten years, but it has never disappointed me, so I continue using it. It scans Startup folders for current user and common one, HKLM Run, HKCU Run and Run Once sections of Windows Registry. For past ten years I thought that these are all locations where application, that is being autorun during system startup can coexist. Turns out, I was wrong.

Since this is brand new Windows, just installed, its autorun locations are empty. The only entry I do have is ATI graphic card driver manager startup string in HKLM Run. I have checked that fact ten times (but only with above mentioned program and manually) and I'm 100% sure, that in none of known to me autorun locations there are no traces of Conexant program startup string.

What do I miss? Does Windows 7 introduces some new startup location or a new method of autorunning programs, that is beyond, what I know and what Startup Control Panel scans?

Solving this problem is a snap for me. I can use brute-force method of removing manually that file or renaming it or I can uninstall Conexant audio driver at all (for the very, very limited use of audio in my laptop, that I have, Windows driver will for sure be enough, I've installed Conexant one "just in case"). But I'm really, really curious, how Windows is possible to run this program each time I restart it? Where autorun string for it can exists?

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    "For past ten years I thought that these are all locations where application, that is being autorun during system startup can coexist." - Oh my, you wouldn't believe the sheer number of weird and obscure startup locations Windows has (which of course malware exploits). I remember reading a post from Mark Russinovich (author of Autoruns), I think from back when he wasn't an employee of MS, and there were locations even he didn't know about and was informed of by sources from within the company. Now that it's an MS utility its knowledge of autorun locations is (naturally) unparalleled.
    – Karan
    Jun 8, 2013 at 20:21
  • @all: Guys! Can someone enlighten me, how my question is a duplicate, if I'm asking about Windows 7 and the other one is about Windows Server 2012? Just because an answer to two question is the same, it doesn't mean, the questions are duplicate, right? As you can see in answer and comment, Windows has many autorun locations and I don't believe that all of them are the same on two as different systems as Windows 7 and Windows Server 2012! Hold your horses with marking questions as duplicate, because it becomes boring!
    – trejder
    Dec 3, 2013 at 21:50

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Check out Autoruns by Microsoft.

This utility, which has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them. These programs include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. You can configure Autoruns to show other locations, including Explorer shell extensions, toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, auto-start services, and much more.

Also keep in mind driver (libraries) themselves could be launching it on hardware initialization or alike.

Additionally I wouldn't expect current Conexant drivers to have that UAC pause at startup, as it's annoying. :) Have you tried the latest version offered on Acer's web site?

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  • Yes! Since my Acer was delivered to me without any installation CD, recovery partition etc. (long story, part of educational program), upon Windows reinstallation I've downloaded all the drivers from Acer site and use that website as the only source of my drivers.
    – trejder
    Jun 10, 2013 at 6:10

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