Task List Programs - AnswersThatWork's famous Database of Processes, Windows Startups, Windows XP Services, Windows Vista Services, Process Library

Task List
Name

PROGRAM &
MANUFACTURER

WHAT IT IS
AND WHAT YOU CAN DO

Oato

Oato.exe

See IWAR.

Ocraware

Ocrawr32

OCRAware.exe

OCRAwr32.exe

(Caere OmniPage – ScanSoft)

These two background programs implement the OCR Aware feature of OmniPage in the later versions of OmniPage (this is called OmniPage/OCR Aware in other versions of OmniPage). This feature inserts the Acquire Text option in the File menu of Office Suites (Microsoft Office, Lotus SmartSuite, Corel WordPerfect). By clicking on "Acquire Text" you can scan a page of text and have it OCR’ed by OmniPage straight into your wordprocessor, spreadsheet, or presentation, all in one operation. When it works it is a great feature and a much simpler operation than opening OmniPage, scanning, converting, and saving into a file.

Recommendation :
Unfortunately there are many documented conflicts between these background programs and other applications such as applications using your modem (!!), or other applications which need to use the scanner. Our recommendation, therefore, is that, unless you do a lot of conversion-to-text scanning (OCR) and you are not experiencing general PC problems or problems with other programs, then you should disable this feature and get used to manually opening OmniPage to scan text. You can disable the feature as follows :
(1) Open OmniPage.
(2) Choose the "Tools \ OCR Aware" menu option.
(3) Remove the check mark against the "Enable OCR Aware" option.

Oecm

Oecm.exe

See IWAR.

Oeet

Oeet.exe

See IWAR.

OEM02Mon

OEM03Mon

OEM04Mon

OEM05Mon

OEM07Mon

OEM02Mon.exe

OEM03Mon.exe

OEM04Mon.exe

OEM05Mon.exe

OEM07Mon.exe

(Creative Technology)

You have the Creative Live! Cam Console currently open or running in the System Tray (or set as a startup item). This icon is installed on the Startups tab of The Ultimate Troubleshooter by the drivers for your Creative webcam. It also comes pre-installed on some Dell PCs which have been pre-packaged with a Dell webcam (with the Dell webcam being simply a re‑badged version of a Creative webcam). Using the console you can toggle Face Tracking ON or OFF, you can adjust brightness, contrast, colour, burst rate, you can increase the gain, etc...

Recommendation :
Although most users are unlikely to be using the Live! Cam console on a daily or even weekly basis (if only because nowadays the Automatic setting of most webcams results in a perfect picture in almost all prevailing conditions), the fact is that on the very day that you actually need to increase brightness, contrast, etc..., you will not want to spend your time finding this program through “Start \ All Programs” as, most likely, you will be at in the middle of a video conference or video call when you urgently need to adjust a setting because the picture is not as good as normal (e.g. dark picture caused by a gloomy overcast rainy day outside). For this reason, and since the program uses very little memory, 2Mb to 5Mb, we recommend keeping this startup task so that the Live! Cam Console is available at all times in the System Tray (unless, of course, you no longer have a Creative/Dell webcam).

Ohdd

Ohdd.exe

See IWAR.

Onenotem

ONENOTEM.exe

(Microsoft)

Microsoft Office OneNote 2003 Taskbar Launch icon. This icon enables you to launch the OneNote note taking and management program from the System Tray.

Recommendation :
The ability to quickly fire up OneNote from the System Tray is crucial to this type of program (so you can take notes on the fly), so our recommendation has to be that you leave it enabled. Additionally, this task must also be running for the SideNotes feature of OneNote to work properly and it must also be running if you normally use the default, or a defined shortcut key, to call up OneNote.

OneTouchMonitor

OneTouchMon

Onetou~2

OneTouchMonitor.exe

OneTouchMon.exe

OneTou~2.exe

(Visioneer Inc.)

System Tray icon which enables the user to access from the System Tray the control buttons on the front panel of the scanner.

Recommendation :
This background task sometimes interferes either with printing or with the ability of your PC to communicate with your printer. If that should happen, disable it on the Startups tab of The Ultimate Troubleshooter.

Onflow

Onflow.exe

(Onflow Corp.)

Onflow is a Web Advertising tool from Onflow Corporation.

Recommendation :
If you downloaded Onflow simply to evaluate it and you are no longer using it, uninstall it via "Add/Remove Programs" in the Control Panel.

Oocs

Oocs.exe

See IWAR.

Opac

Opac.exe

See IWAR.

Opscan

OPScan.exe

(Symantec)

Norton AntiVirus Out of Process Scan Server task installed by Norton AntiVirus 2004/5. We are not yet 100% certain but this task seems to be a “scan engine” task which uses a standard programming interface so that non-Symantec products can interface with it and request that a particular file be scanned for viruses. From our tests we also believe that it is this same process that is used when you choose to integrate Norton with Microsoft Office so that, for example, documents are scanned for viruses as you open them from within Word, Excel, PowerPoint.

Recommendation :
If we are correct in our findings this task, if present, is essential and should be left alone.

Opware16

Opware32

Opware16.exe

Opware32.exe

(Caere OmniPage – ScanSoft)

These two background programs implement the OmniPage Aware feature of OmniPage in specific versions of OmniPage (this is called OCR Aware in other versions of OmniPage). This feature inserts the Acquire Text option in the File menu of Office Suites (Microsoft Office, Lotus SmartSuite, Corel WordPerfect). By clicking on "Acquire Text" you can scan a page of text and have it OCR’ed by OmniPage straight into your wordprocessor, spreadsheet, or presentation, all in one operation. When it works it is a great feature and a much simpler operation than opening OmniPage, scanning, converting, and saving into a file.

Recommendation :
Unfortunately there are many documented conflicts between these background programs and other applications such as applications using your modem (!!), or other applications which need to use the scanner. Our recommendation, therefore, is that, unless you do a lot of conversion-to-text scanning (OCR) and you are not experiencing general PC problems or problems with other programs, then you should disable this feature and get used to manually opening OmniPage to scan text. You can disable the feature as follows :
(1) Open OmniPage.
(2) Choose the "Tools \ Options" menu option.
(3) Choose the "OCR Aware" tab.
(4) Remove the check mark against the "Enable OCR Aware" option.

Osa

Osa9

OSA.exe

OSA9.exe

(Microsoft)

Microsoft Office’s Office Startup Application. Present in Microsoft Office 97, 2000, and XP where it is called OSA9.EXE. According to Microsoft, OSA enables Microsoft Office programs to start faster. It is our view, however, that most Microsoft background programs whose purpose is to enable you to “do something” faster, are a total utter waste of time and, worse, they also sometimes have extremely irritating side-effects which completely negate their supposed benefits (such as the annoying and infamous FindFast).

Recommendation :
Disable on the Startups tab of The Ultimate Troubleshooter. Note : do not delete, simply disable, as one or two users have reported that on their PCs, for a reason we are not yet sure of, disabling OSA/OSA9 leads to errors when attempting to start Microsoft Office programs such as Word, Excel, etc... If you experience this problem, simply re-enable OSA/OSA9.

Osd

OSD.exe

(Netropa Corp)

Netropa’s OnScreen Display System Tray icon which comes installed on a number of blue-chip manufacturers’ PCs, such as DELL, Compaq, HP, IBM, Acer. Etc… If you right-click on the icon you can change the colour or font of your display, and you can also modify other display settings, such as the display frequency, etc...

Recommendation :
This icon simply adds to the clutter of the system tray – it adds nothing that you cannot do by going into the Display Settings in the Control Panel. Worse, OSD interferes with games which change the volume during the game, it has significant compatibility problems with some graphics drivers, and it causes some screen savers to crash. Delete immediately on the Startups tab of The Ultimate Troubleshooter. If you cannot find it there, then you are running Windows 2000/XP and you have a newer version of this software, in which case go to the Services tab of The Ultimate Troubleshooter and set the Startup Mode of this service to Disabled.

Oses

Oses.exe

See IWAR.

Ossproxy

OssProxy.exe

(Netsetter / Marketscore)

Software which gets installed on your PC when you install the Internet Acceleration software from Marketscore (previously Netsetter). Note that you may have installed Marketscore unwittingly while installing other software.

Recommendation :
There are doubts as to whether this Internet acceleration really works – in our opinion, if you have a DSL/ADSL or Cable Modem connection, then you do not need this type of service. Most importantly, read your Marketscore License Agreement – if you do not like what you read in it, de-install the service and software. To remove in Windows 9x/ME, do "Start \ Run" and type "C:\Windows\System\NSCheck /uninstall". To remove in Windows NT4/2000/XP/2003 do "Start \ Run" and type NSCheck /uninstall.

Outlook (1)

Outlook.exe

(Microsoft)

You have Microsoft Outlook open.

Outlook (2)

Outlook.exe

(???)

If the path of this file shows in The Ultimate Troubleshooter as being C:\Windows\Outlook.exe or C:\WinNT\Outlook.exe then it is almost certain you have the W32.Mimail.Q@mm virus or some other virus.

All of the tasks below, and many more, although not detailed on this page, are explained in full in The Ultimate Troubleshooter.

The Ultimate Troubleshooter (TUT), has the full database in a remarkably easy and pleasing interface which makes the process of fine tuning your PC, or troubleshooting your computer's problems, a snip. Get it here.

O2Flash.exe, Oasclnt.exe, ObjectDock.exe, Ocautoupds.exe, OcHealthMon.exe, OdHost.exe, ODSERV.EXE, OfcDog.exe, OfcPfwSvc.exe, OffDiag.exe, OfficeHost.vbs, OfficePopup.exe, OFFSyncService.exe, OFPA.exe, Ofps.exe, Olehelp.exe, OLFSNT40.EXE, OLYMPUS Master.exe, OMF4.exe, Omemory.exe, OmniPage.exe, Omnipage16.exe, OmniServ.exe, OneNote.exe, OneTouch.exe, OneTouch.exe, OnlineBackup.exe, Oobefldr.dll, ShowWelcomeCenter, WindowsWelcomeCenter, OOD2000.exe, OODAg.exe, OpAgent.exe, Opera.exe, OpScheduler.exe, Optimize.exe, Opware12.exe, Opware14.exe, Opware15.exe, OpwareSE2.exe, OpwareSE4.exe, OPXPApp.exe, OrbiCam.exe, Orcal.exe, Orchart.exe, Orclprxy.exe, Ordllhst.exe, Org5.exe, Org6.exe, ORplat.exe, osCheck.exe, OSD.exe, Ose.exe, OSPPSvc.exe, Otcxxh.exe, Outpost.exe, OverClk.exe, OWSTIMER.EXE, OXNEY.B.VBS, Oxney.vbs

If you know of a background program that is missing from our database, but which you feel others should know about because of its potential side-effects, then let us know via the Feedback button.