Activity Monitor has a process named "EXE" that loads on startup, how can I track down where this file is to delete it?

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Activity Monitor has a process named "EXE" that loads on startup, how can I track down where this file is to delete it?

I'm working on a friends older Mac Mini Running OS X Leopard. In the Activity Monitor I noticed something called "EXE" that was running at 99% of the CPU on startup causing her already old MacMini to slow to a crawl. I was able to quit the process which sped things up but I need to know how to track down this file and delete it. Anyone know what this is? There are screenshots below.

God Bless,

Bryce

Posted on Aug 31, 2011 10:20 AM

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Answer 1

Tesserax

Level 10

157,956 points

Aug 31, 2011 8:56 PM in response to ccmbryce

'EXE" is not a standard OS X process. I would recommend that you download and install Purpose Technologies atMonitor. It has an advantage over Activity Monitor in that it provides a path to the file that a process is running.

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Answer 2

ccmbryce Author

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Sep 1, 2011 1:48 PM in response to Tesserax

That worked, the file path is: /sbin/launchd/EXE any idea what this is???

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Answer 3

Tesserax

Level 10

157,956 points

Sep 1, 2011 5:21 PM in response to ccmbryce

The /sbin directory is similar to /bin except it contains binaries that are specifically used for system administration. (The /bin directory is one of several locations where Unix-type binaries (programs or command-line commands) are kept.) Note: /sbin & /bin are OS X system directories and are "hidden" by default. Please check out this Mac OS X Hints article on how to "unhide" these types of folders in the Finder.

launchd was introduced with OS X Tiger, but is actually a platform independent program. Its primary purpose is for the starting/stopping of daemons, applications, processes, and scripts.

In this case it is launchd is used to start the item called "EXE." You can try using the tip above to access the /sbin directory to see if you can locate this item. If you can, you should Option-click it, and then, choose the "Get Info" option to see if you can find any additional information about it.

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