21 July 2006

tgcmd.exe

Recently I've noticed that my computer has been slower than I remember, especially during start-up. To remedy this I used msconfig to limit the number of non-essential programs/processes initiated at start-up. I had to google some program names because my tech-unsavvy self had no idea what some of them were. Processes of particular note included tgcmd.exe and its brethren from SupportSoft. Most likely it was installed by my ISP (Comcast) and is used when providing customer support--but according to what I've read it can also be used to track my actions while surfing the internet. What the heck?! This sucker is gone!

Unfortunately, although everything seemed okay at first, I came back a couple hours later only to discover that I'd lost my internet connection. After I tried the usual suspects, I gave up and phoned customer support. Eventually they arranged an appointment for a technician to come to my place to look at it. Ugh. Anywhoo, with great trepidation I decided to see what would happen if I let tgcmd.exe run at start-up. Guess what? My internet connection came back :o(

So, let's see... tgcmd.exe is a process used by Comcast for customer support, but I didn't need customer support until I stopped tgcmd.exe from running... so how is this oh-so-useful process helping me other than being a drain on memory useage?

If you run a search for tgcmd.exe a lot of information comes up--here's just one of the links I followed. The information on there seemed fairly consistant with the other links I read.

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