How to Remove Annoying GoogleUpdate.exe Background Process After Installing Google Chrome?

As you all know about "Chrome" web browser released by Google. Its very fast and very light on resources. But lots of Chrome users are facing one common problem.

If you have installed Chrome, you might have noticed that a new process "GoogleUpdate.exe" runs in background. You can check it using Task Manager:

Even if you End Task of this process, it automatically comes back after a few minutes or when you launch Chrome next time.

Actually its not a problem, Its a standalone exe file which is used by Google Chrome to check for new updates. If it finds any update available, it downloads and installs it.

But its very annoying because it never asks before downloading or installing the updates and runs in background for all the time.

So if you are also among all those people who want to get rid of this annoying exe file, then follow this tutorial and you'll get rid of this file forever.

METHOD A:

The most easiest way is to disallow "GoogleUpdate.exe" to access Internet using your system Firewall. You can create a new rule for it.

METHOD B:

If you don't use any firewall or don't want to use the 1st method, then you can use following steps to permanently remove the "GoogleUpdate.exe" file from your system but remember that after removing the file you'll no longer be able to update the Chrome web browser using its built-in update function. You'll need to manually download the new version.

1. First disable "GoogleUpdate.exe" from system startup. Type msconfig in RUN dialog box and press Enter. It'll open "System Configuration" window. Now goto "Startup" tab and uncheck "GoogleUpdate" from the list.

Apply the changes and restart your system.

PS: You can also use Registry Editor or any other 3rd party utility to remove startup entry. Windows Defender can also do the job.

2. Now we'll need to remove the scheduled task created for GoogleUpdate.exe from our system. Open "Scheduled Tasks" or "Task Scheduler" from Control Panel or Programs menu. You can also run it by directly providing "taskschd.msc" command in RUN dialog box or by opening "%windir%\Tasks" folder.

Now look for the "GoogleUpdateTaskUser" task and delete it.

XP:

Vista:

You can also disable the task instead of deleting it.

3. Now the last thing. We'll need to remove the "GoogleUpdate.exe" file permanently so that it doesn't add its entry in startup.

Go to following folder:

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Update

Replace C: with your system drive where Windows is installed and replace "Administrator" with your user name in Windows.

In the above folder, you'll find the "GoogleUpdate.exe" file. Delete the file.

If you find any difficulties in deleting the file, then make sure GoogleUpdate.exe is not running in background, if its running then End Task of it using Task Manager and then try to delete it again.

4. That's it. Now you'll no longer see "GoogleUpdate.exe" file in background process list.

You can also download and install the Offline installer of Google Chrome which doesn't include the "GoogleUpdate.exe" file:

Chrome Offline Installer: Full Standalone Installer Without Google Update

Or you can use the Portable version of Google Chrome which doesn't need to be installed:

Download Portable Version of Google Chrome, No Need to Install

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This article was posted in Browsers, Google Chrome, Troubleshooting.

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14 Comments

Omi Azad

Honestly I don't like the Google Updated thing. And thanks to Vishal for helping me removing it.
Alex Araujo

Better yet: uninstall Google Chrome! Although looks like GoogleUpdate is not removed when Chrome is uninstalled.
Ingnition

Hey VG, everytime that i use google chrome, i go to pages like youtube and myspace and then google chrome just freezes for like 10 seconds, i can close it and open new tabs but the program and the page just freezes, i did downloaded the latest updates, any help on this?

By the way, nice tut
Mayur

a nice tutorial vg
Thanks
occam

There is a much simpler way ('METHOD C')

Download SRWare Iron, which is a 'safe' Chrome i.e. with GoogleUpdate.exe and some other snoopware (e.g. search terms logging) disabled.

http://www.srware.net/software_srware_iron_download.php

Don't be put off by the German site. The language of Iron can be simply set to English.
Vansloneker

Go to system tools, local security policies, software restrictions, extra rules. Make new hash, simply disable googleupdate.exe
Burchfield

I followed the above steps but I still have googleupdate.exe running in my processes. Anyone else having same problem.
beng tang

There is another googleupdate.exe in
C:\Program Files\Google\Update\

And yet another one was in
C:\Program Files\Google\Google Update\
Alex Araujo

Looks like GoogleUpdate is a mutant virus!
Bernard du Toit

Hi, I just found 'n "METHOD D" to disable google update from installing with chrome!! This dow not require any tweaking on your system.

All you need to do is download the "Full Chrome Installer" and then install from this exe. If done this way it does not create any google update files or entries anywhere.

My conclusion is that the "Chrome Installer" that you download from the website to install chrome, is creating this entries and file.