Every so often, a PowerShell- or Command Prompt-like window flashes on my Windows 11 desktop. It contains several lines of organized text but disappears in less than a second, so I can't read what ran. It happens while I'm browsing the web or watching videos, sometimes several times within an hour, but I haven't noticed it during games. Could this be Windows, an automatic update, a scheduled task, or something I installed? What's the best way to identify the process responsible?
3 Answers
A quick way to investigate is to check your PowerShell command history with `Get-Content (Get-PSReadLineOption).HistorySavePath`. That may show commands entered through an interactive PowerShell session, although automated scheduled tasks don’t always appear there.
Run Microsoft Sysinternals Autoruns as administrator and inspect the Scheduled Tasks tab. It lists programs and scripts configured to start automatically, and you can often check suspicious entries with VirusTotal. This is usually more useful than trying to catch a window that disappears immediately.
That isn’t typical behavior if it’s happening repeatedly, so think about anything installed or updated recently. Check Task Scheduler, startup applications, and the installed-program list for unfamiliar software. If you find an unknown task, look at its action and the parent program before disabling or deleting anything.
The important clue is which process launched the shell and what command it ran. Task Scheduler or event logs may reveal that relationship, especially if the command is part of a program checking for updates or running cleanup.