OfficeBackgroundTaskHandlerRegistration command prompt window annoyance

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Hello all, 

    We were trying to figure out for a long time why we were getting a random command prompt box pop up while working throughout the day. We finally narrowed it down to a scheduled task related to Office 365. The task OfficeBackgroundTaskHandlerRegistration runs indefinatley every hour and it is a rather annoyance when working on something on your PC and it pops up, playing games, doing presentations anything. YOu manually run this and you can reporduce the box. 

 

The work around is we change the conditions to only run when the PC has been idle, however this gets reset with Office updates. 

 

Microsoft, can you please fix this? Either set the default to only run when the PC is idle. Or somehow change the task to run without a command box appearing. 

 

Thank you. 

16 Replies

@Deleted wrote:

Hello all, 

    We were trying to figure out for a long time why we were getting a random command prompt box pop up while working throughout the day. We finally narrowed it down to a scheduled task related to Office 365. The task OfficeBackgroundTaskHandlerRegistration runs indefinatley every hour and it is a rather annoyance when working on something on your PC and it pops up, playing games, doing presentations anything. YOu manually run this and you can reporduce the box. 

 

The work around is we change the conditions to only run when the PC has been idle, however this gets reset with Office updates. 

 

Microsoft, can you please fix this? Either set the default to only run when the PC is idle. Or somehow change the task to run without a command box appearing. 

 

Thank you. 



I experience this too for a few weeks/months (?) now. Seems like a bug or a developer leftover. Never seen it before. Kinda annoying. I reinstalled my computer for it, cause I could't find what it was and was afraid it was some kind of malware* 🙂

 

*well, the reinstall needed to happen anyhow. But I was very annoyed that it didn't solve this...

Did you understand what I meant by editing the scheduled task and changing the conditions? This will get rid of the box from running while your actively using the computer. It's in Scheduled tasks under the Microsoft / Office folder. You can edit the job, however anytime Office updates you got to go update again apparently.

Yes! 🙂

The computer reinstall was a week or two ago, so long before I found out it was a scheduled task... and it was only this morning I too pointed it to OfficeBackgroundTaskHandlerRegistration. So for now I can ignore the blinking of the command prompt every hour, as I know it's just a thing from Office.

 

Hope Microsoft fixes it soon.

 

(and when I'm going to do a presentation, I will use your solution to turn it off. But I'm not going to do it for now, when I need to redo it with every Office update) 

The same thing. Every hour. I thought OfficeBackgroundTaskHandler.exe was malware or virus. Process monitor helped me. It's really annoying.

I have this flashy command prompt window also on three different machines. It was introduced after the last two updates. But there are threads in some forums which are older.

I'm also having this issue on two of my client desktops (one of which is the owner's desktop... it's always the owner's computer, never the intern, right?)

 

I set up OBS on one of the computers and managed to get the (awful) attached screencap. 

 

Here's hoping MS fixes this soon!

OfficeBackgroundTaskHandlerRegistration is currently set to run as User - Change it to System and the DOS box stops BUT today I had to reset the setting back to System since it appears an update set it back to User.

 

Microsoft, please wake up.

 

Hello,

Would you mind helping me by providing a walkthrough on how to edit the task, when i go to the task scheduler, I don't see Mircosoft or Office folders.

I think we just need to wait a day or so (if you're a first release user). A fix seems to be made and is rolling out:
https://mspoweruser.com/heres-how-to-fix-that-annoying-command-prompt-popup-window-in-windows/

Open a DOS window enter Taskschd.msc OR open Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Task Scheduler

Click to the left of Task Scheduler Library on the >

Click to the left of Microsoft on the >

Click on the Office folder

Click on the forth (4th) item down below Name in the center of the window

Verify it is OfficeBackgroundTaskHandlerRegistration

Double Click the forth (4th) item to open the edit window

In Security options

Click on Change User or Group...

In the Enter the object name to select box enter system and click Check Names

Click OK

Click OK

In other Microsoft forums Microsoft engineers told the audience to simply delete this task, because it is an empty task that does nothing. So it's safe to delete it, no need to change anything in this task. They also wrote, that this bug is already solved in the current build that will be published in a few days.

Link please, it would be better had the issue been addressed the day after it was released and people started complaining.

I tried this.  Don't know if it works yet because I have to wait another 45 minutes, but this solution seems promising.  https://mspoweruser.com/heres-how-to-fix-that-annoying-command-prompt-popup-window-in-windows/ 

I'm having a similar problem but do not have Office or any sign of this program. Is there anything else that could be causing this issue? I've done numerous virus scans and clean boots without disabling Microsoft programs. This suggests to me that one of your programs may be causing me difficulty. Are there any other programs you've seen that could be causing this problem? 

I just started having this same issue.  Is this still a problem or has it been patched to be hidden from the user yet?

It was corrected as far as I know, have you updated your Office yet, what ver. do you have? File > Office Acocunt (About Outlook) Section