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:
Official Link to Download Google Chrome Standalone Offline Installer
Or you can use the Portable version of Google Chrome which doesn't need to be installed:
Download Portable Version of Google Chrome for USB Drives, No Need to Install
This article was posted by VG in following section: Google Chrome, Troubleshooting.
If you enjoyed this article, you can subscribe to our RSS feed or free newsletter to get all new articles directly in your Inbox. Also check out our most popular articles and archive to read other interesting articles. If you have some news or tip to share, please send us.
rameshbabu
I really thank to u.cause i got disturb due to this updater.now i feel from free
Tamnais
Well, that's just about one of the more "wtf?" advices I've come across recently... a Windows NT 3.51 server admin's style I'd say... ("I" will perform updates, not YOU, you bad, bad program!) from my point of view, every application should have an auto update, so I wouldn't have to visit all sites of my favourite apps every month or so, or waste time to configure 3rd party autoupdate app. Also Chrome update does not overwrite older version but instead it installs itself separately in c:\Users\\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\ and always keeps 2 versions in place, so you can easy switch to older version, if you feel so (although I have no idea why one would do that?). More important, newer Chrome versions have proved at least to 95% of them, to be better, faster, introducing new features etc. If you have performance or stability issues, I'd suggest to perform a thorough OS maintenance or use tools like Process Monitor from Mark Russinovich to trace down the malperforming app or even dll, as I had some annoying experiences, most notably, most of the antivirus apps. I'm running Chrome with autoupdate for ages now and didn't had any single issue with it (excluding missing app icon in taskbar few versions back) so now I'm using a dev version on my Kubuntu based notebook also for primary browser, no problems detected, even after Google has enabled flash by default in latest versions (previously disabled due to some serious bugs within flash).
Dave Pearson
In Firefox just download the NoScript Add-on and when installed open the Google homepage. In the Status bar at the bottom right click on the NoScript icon and ‘Forbid’ scripts from Google. Simple.
Gabriel
Oh man, thanks a lot for this sequence against this annoying thing...
Success for you! =)
Master GoogleScrub
Oops, I just realised that the GoogleUpdate service "gupdate" does not disappear after you've removed all the dll files and rebooted.
So, you can insert Step 4a as follows:
4a) Go into the properties of the "Google Update Service (gupdate)" service, and take note of what the the Service Name is: under XP it's called gupdate. If you're using another OS, just make sure they haven't changed the Service name. Next, open up a command prompt and type in (without the quotes) "sc delete gupdate" (or whatever the Service Name is). You should get the message "[SC] DeleteService SUCCESS", which indicates the service details have been deleted from the Registry and also the list of Services in the Computer Management console. This is the safest way, although you can also do the same thing by going to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Services" in the registry and deleting the gupdate key & all its contents.
If you've already actioned steps 1-7, don't worry, you can do step 4a at the end and it works fine.
Veeck
Yeah I did this with msconfig a long time ago.
jeff
I have to disagree about this not being a problem! I dont want anything auto updated on my pc and the fact they dont tell you up front... then to find myself hacking the cacerous leave behinds from my system... Im a little PO'd and so how is this different than a virus?
syafiela
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Update i cnt find this lol huh sigh
Chris
You will need the update process to be able to update Chrome when a new version is out.
I Wouldn't recommend disable it.
PL
How about just typing about:plugins and disable googleupdate ?