PowerShell starts running on its own, consumes most of the memory and cannot play my game.

Question

Recently I have noticed that PowerShell would start running while I am playing a game (genshin impact). The window flashes for a short while and it disappears from taskbar. And then I noticed, the game would lag a lot! Even the simple static page would also take a while to load. Then I noticed, that its powershell consuming almost 30% RAM. (Attached screenshot). Then if I manually click on 'End Task' from task manager, everything becomes normal(ish).
Why would this happen and is there a way to stop it ? It is really annoying while playing an online game in co-op.

Answer 1

Hello,

If you are not very experience working with processes and their image paths, and you don't need powershell for other tasks, you can avoid the issue by disabling that Windows Feature using:

1.Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open the Task Manager.
2.Navigate to the Startup tab.
3.Right-click on the Windows PowerShell option and select Disable. Finally, close the Task Manager and restart your device.

Alternatively, you can use local policies to prevent it from executing with the next steps:

1.Press Win + R to open the Run command dialog box.
2.Type gpedit.msc and press Enter to open the LGPE.
3.Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > System.
4.Double-click on the Don't run specified Windows applications option on the right-hand side pane.
5.Select Enabled in the top-left corner. From there, navigate to the Options section in the bottom-left and click the Show button. This should pop up the Show Contents screen.
6.Type powershell.exe below the Value box and then press OK. Next, press Apply and then press OK in the LGPE window. This should disable the PowerShell tool.

--If the reply is helpful, please Upvote and Accept as answer--

Answer 2

In the details tab, right click the column headers and select "Select columns". Add "Command line". What script is it executing? Does that give you an idea of what launched it and what its doing?

Download and run Autoruns. See if you can find any reference to Powershell or the script name. Check the Scheduled Tasks first.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autoruns

Answer 3

If the power shell window is opening randomly and going away, your system is likely compromised via a Google Chrome extension exploit that Google doesn't do anything about. Do a clean install of Windows, else you may find someone buying Google Play money on your computer while you're away.