ubd.exe why has it appeared in my Windows 7 start up programmes?

ubd is the ubiquity server process, & from Apple. It is primarily used for "Mobile Documents" (iCloud feature for syncing files).

Hallo.

The file ubd.exe seems to be an autostart programm under Windows OS's. Does it cause any problems to deaktivate the autostart for this programm?

Thanks.

clotz wrote:

Hallo.

The file ubd.exe seems to be an autostart programm under Windows OS's. Does it cause any problems to deaktivate the autostart for this programm?

Thanks.

Try it and find out.

Be careful what you read on the Internet. First of all, not "all" Google searches say it is malware. The top hit for me is about iCloud, as are many if not most of the other hits. The ones that say it is malware are trying to sell me virus scanning software or wanting to do a free scan for me (yeah, like I'd do that). Maybe there is malware of the same name, maybe not. But, judging by the fact that you have an iPhone, it is much more likely the udb.exe you have is iCloud-related.

Unfortunately this isn't possible, because i don't have it at disposal. For me it's important to know how the situation is in terms of the software.

Edit: For Example i want to know if the deactivation of the autostart causes any problems with the programs using this program, if the program start automatically when a linked program tries to use it, if it's possible to start the ubiquity server process manually, etc ... .

This note from my Little Snitch configuration is relevant to whether or not it is malware ...

On 16 Oct 2012, ubd tried to establish a connection to eu-irl-00001.s3.amazonaws.com on port 443 (https). The request was denied via connection alert.

It seems that amazonaws.com is a commercial tracking and profiling outfit owned by amazon.com. That certainly sniffs of malware to me.

-barney

amazonaws.com is not a commercial tracking and profiling outfit. s3 stands for Simple Storage Service, and AWS stands for Amazon Web Services. Major websites around the world use Amazon Web Services for their cloud storage needs, including the New York Times, Reddit, Netflix -- and Apple. It makes sense that an Apple utility would attempt to establish a connection to s3.amazonaws.com, especially a cloud-based document utility.

cheers

As Badunit said it is actually a Apple system file for Icloud. It is associated with Apple application support software and not a malware program. Some people should not automatically jump to the MALWARE answer without knowing that there answer is completely incorrect. If you uninstall apple applikcation support that file will probably be deleted as well.

While it isn't MALWARE, what a company thinks is important to be omnipresent, consuming a slot in my process list, using resources, may not be what I think is important. So, does anyone know what ubd.exe, and it's child in this case distnoted.exe, is actually doing?

Most software companies seem to want an omnipresent slice of your computer. Seems like its for marketing, to be sure you don't forget about them. But, install 30 or 40 apps over the years and pretty soon these little buggers are significant resource consumers. Lets start asking companies like Apple to explain themselves.

For example, I'm not using iTunes at the moment and I don't want it to automatically start when I plug in the phone, yet iTunesHelper.exe is sitting out there in the list consuming it's 83 MB of memory because Apple finds it important. So important that if you kill it, another one called iPodService.exe starts it back up.

Does anyone really know why ubd.exe has to be running?

Save a copy of it then delete it from your system and see what happens. First hand experience is the great teacher. Then let all of us know how it went.

This suggestion is a perfect example of what's wrong with the majority of software we are trying to use.

Basically, Badunit suggests I "try something" with no clue whether it will work, what the ramifications of doing so are, or any idea why it will work. Even though

DON'T JUST TRY STUFF AND SEE IF IT WORKS!!!!

Here's why:

1. How could you possibly test every scenario in every program, even just the important ones, to see what the effect of "trying something" could be? You can't, so you may get unpredictable behavior later.
2. Because you aren't aware what any of this stuff is doing, you don't know what may be going on without any indication,. Data corruption??? Who knows.
3. Even if you are brave, and are willing to "just try it", you can relatively easily get yourself in a situation where the environment becomes a mess and doesn't work, hangs, or crashes. Yes, even from deleting the file. It can happen. If you don't make a backup of your system and test that backup method regularly so you know it works, you might be rebuilding your PC.
4. You are letting the software author off the hook for documentation he/she should have provided.

I've been developing software since 1978 and I've watched as the quality of applications has slid. Microsoft and Apple write bloated, undocumented, relatively unstable code that only functions as it does because of the speed and efficiency of the hardware masking it.

Badunit even hints that he knows this because he wants me to post how it went. I respect that, and I would happily share any information I get about this process. But, I use this system and I'm not about to make it a guinea pig for the incompetent software developer who neglected to document their software sufficiently to troubleshoot it.

STOP THE MADNESS!!! STOP ACCEPTING THIS AS A VIABLE TROUBLESHOOTING METHOD AND INSIST THAT SOFTWARE COMPANIES DOCUMENT THEIR SYSTEMS!!!

We shouldn't have to do their job for them on our important systems. One of the reasons Apple has an edge on Microsoft is that they have a relatively controlled operating environment. Most software and hardware in an OS X environment comes from Apple and there are strict rules about how to code into the environment. The downside is that you are really at their mercy to fix it.

In this case, Apple has little incentive to make this easy to troubleshoot because they'll tell you it works better on a Mac so you should buy one. But if there IS an Apple guy on here who would be willing to share, could you give us some concrete technical information on ubd.exe, distnoted .exe and iCloudServices.exe and how they work together so that we can troubleshoot and/or make resource decisions?