{"id":1092,"date":"2017-09-26T11:41:08","date_gmt":"2017-09-26T11:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stcleaner.com\/blog\/?p=1092"},"modified":"2017-09-26T11:41:08","modified_gmt":"2017-09-26T11:41:08","slug":"is-it-safe-and-recommended-to-turn-off-sidebar-exe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stcleaner.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/26\/is-it-safe-and-recommended-to-turn-off-sidebar-exe\/","title":{"rendered":"Is It Safe and Recommended to Turn Off sidebar.exe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sidebar.exe<\/b> denotes the <\/span>Windows Sidebar<\/b> or the <\/span>Windows Desktop Gadgets<\/b> process. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It belongs to the <\/span>Microsoft Windows OS<\/b> and is found in <\/span>Windows Vista<\/b> and <\/span>Windows 7<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is an important part of <\/span>Windows<\/b> and is used for showing gadgets on the home screen or the desktop. <\/span>Sidebar.exe<\/b> can be located at <\/span>C:\\Program Files<\/b> and occupies around <\/span>1.4 MB<\/b> on the hard disk. The <\/span>Windows Sidebar<\/b> was introduced as a desktop feature for <\/span>Windows Vista<\/b> and <\/span>Windows 7<\/b>. It was part of the <\/span>Windows Gadget Platform<\/b>, which was the official framework for creating mini-apps for the desktop.<\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>sidebar.exe<\/b> launches multiple processes in <\/span>Windows Vista<\/b>, but it launches only a single process in <\/span>Windows 7<\/b>. An interesting aspect of this process is that it doesn\u2019t initialize until a gadget is added to the desktop. If a gadget has been disabled before switching off the computer, <\/span>sidebar.exe<\/b> won\u2019t start at the next system bootup. To enable a <\/span>Windows Gadget<\/b>, right-click on the desktop and select <\/span>Gadgets<\/b>. Now you can double-click the gadget(s) of your choice to simply enable them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sidebar.exe<\/b> is a <\/span>Windows<\/b> process and was deemed perfectly safe to use (until some vulnerabilities were discovered). It can be found in the <\/span>Program Files<\/b> folder of the drive on which the OS is installed. It can record keyboard and mouse inputs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Processes<\/a>
Processes tab of the Task Manager showing up sidebar.exe<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\nMalware with the same name<\/b><\/h2>\n

Most writers of malware programs deliberately use <\/span>Windows<\/b>\u2019 processes names so that innocent users can be trapped. There is a huge likelihood that this happens (if it does at all) in <\/span>Windows 8<\/b>\/ <\/span>8.1<\/b>\/ <\/span>10<\/b> as these editions didn\u2019t contain the <\/span>Windows Sidebar<\/b> and this is where rogue individuals found an opportunity to make use of.<\/span><\/p>\n

Microsoft<\/b> went on to recommend users to remove the <\/span>sidebar.exe<\/b> feature as the <\/span>Gadget<\/b> section was later deemed to be a security risk on a couple of counts. The first reason was that attackers could gain control to the system due to the vulnerabilities in the gadgets whereas the second reason was that the attackers could create a \u2018fake\u2019 gadget to get the users to install it on their system. And from then onwards, this provided the rogue designers with endless possibilities to exploit. Therefore, the users were advised to <\/span>uninstall <\/span>the Windows Sidebar<\/b><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How to recognize suspicious variants of sidebar.exe?<\/b><\/h2>\n

If you want to retain <\/span>Windows Sidebar<\/b>, then there are ways to help you look out for any suspicious elements that might have trespassed into it. Following are the possible scenarios:<\/span><\/p>\n