[Tip] Disable Software Reporter Tool.exe Causing High CPU Usage

If you noticed a strange process or application with the name Software Reporter Tool (or Software_Reporter_Tool.exe) running in Task Manager in Windows and the process is causing high CPU usage/disk usage in your computer, this article will help you in understanding what is this process doing in your computer and how to get rid of it.

In this article, we’ll discuss Software Reporter Tool issues and different methods to disable or remove it.

What is Software Reporter Tool in Chrome?

Software Reporter Tool (or SRT) is a part of Google Chrome‘s Clean up Computer functionality which periodically scans your computer for unwanted harmful software. If this tool finds any harmful app or extension which can cause problems, it removes them from user’s computer. The tool is also known as Chrome Cleanup Tool or Software Removal Tool.

Please note that Software Reporter Tool is not an antivirus or anti-malware program. It just scans and removes apps and extensions which can cause problems in Chrome and can prevent Chrome from working properly such as tab crashes, unknown homepage or search engines, etc.

Software Reporter Tool executable runs once a week and scans your computer. It may take up to 25 minutes in completing the full scan.

Sometimes people ask is Software Reporter Tool safe or a virus? Since the executable is installed by Google Chrome browser, it’s absolutely safe program. Generally you should not face any problem with Software Reporter Tool and you should allow it to run in your computer as it protects your computer from harmful software and malware.

Multiple Software Reporter Tool Processes Running in Task Manager in Windows

Sometimes Software Reporting Tool may start consuming lots of memory and may cause high CPU usage and high disk usage issues. Many users notice multiple “Software Reporter Tool.exe” processes running in Task Manager in their Windows devices. Most of the times 3 or more instances of “Software_Reporter_Tool.exe” executable run in Windows. Sometimes the processes take up to 60% of CPU resources.

Following screenshot shows 4 instances of Software_Reporter_Tool.exe process running in Task Manager in our Windows 11 PC and taking 55% of CPU resources in our system:

The executable name shows as Software_Reporter_Tool.exe and the real name or description shows “Software Reporter Tool“. The EXE file is stored under “%localappdata%\Google\Chrome\User Data\SwReporter\” folder on user’s hard drive.

How to Disable or Remove Software Reporter Tool.exe in Chrome

If you want to disable or remove Google Chrome’s Software Reporter Tool in your Windows PC, we are going to share several methods to permanently block Software Reporter Tool from running in your computer. Many privacy concerned users may want to prevent or restrict this tool from running in their computer as it may send the scan results report to Google.

You can try following methods to get rid of Software Reporter Tool in your Windows machine:

METHOD 1: Disable Software Reporter Tool Using Chrome Settings

This is the 1st step which you should follow to disallow Software Reporter Tool from running in background and sending scan report details to Google:

1. Open Google Chrome, click on the 3-dots icon (main menu) present at the top-right corner of the window.

2. Now select “Settings” option from the main menu.

3. It’ll open Chrome settings page. In left-side pane, click on “Advanced” option. In older versions of Chrome, you’ll find the “Advanced” option at the bottom of Settings page.

4. Under “System” section, set the option “Continue running background apps when Google Chrome is closed” to OFF.

5. Now under “Reset and clean up” section, click on “Clean up computer” option.

It’ll open Chrome Cleanup Tool page. Now set the option “Report details to Google” to OFF i.e. uncheck the option.

It’ll prevent Software Reporter Tool from running in background and sending scan results to Google.

METHOD 2: Disable Software Reporter Tool Using Registry Editor Policies

You can also block Software Reporter Tool (including Chrome Cleanup) using official Chrome policy. We’ll need to use Registry Editor tool to apply the policy in our computer system.

1. Press “WIN+R” key combination to launch RUN dialog box then type regedit and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to following key:

3. Under Policies key, create a new key and set its name to Google

4. Under Google key, create a new key and set its name to Chrome

So the final key path will be:

5. Now select Chrome key and in right-side pane, right-click and select “New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value” option. Set the new DWORD name as ChromeCleanupEnabled

Again create a new DWORD and set its name to ChromeCleanupReportingEnabled

Keep both DWORDs value to 0

“ChromeCleanupEnabled” will prevent Chrome’s Software Reporter Tool from scanning your computer.

“ChromeCleanupReportingEnabled” will prevent Software Reporter Tool from sending scan result report to Google.

NOTE: If you are not familiar with Registry editing and want a ready-made Registry script to do the task automatically, download following ZIP file, extract it using 7-Zip or any other file archive utility and run the extracted REG file. It’ll ask for confirmation, accept it:

Download Registry Script to Disable Software Reporter Tool

This ready-made registry script will create the required registry key automatically.

PS: In future, if you want to re-enable Software Reporter Tool, delete both DWORDs created in Step 5.

METHOD 3: Disable Software Reporter Tool Using GPO (Group Policy Editor)

If you are a system administrator and manage multiple computers on network, you can deploy following Group Policy in your Windows network to easily apply the above mentioned Chrome policy in all computers at once:

1. First you’ll need to manually add the required group policy files to your Windows computer as Google Chrome doesn’t come bundled with any policy. Don’t worry! Google provides an official Chrome Policy templates pack which can be downloaded from following link:

Download Google Chrome Group Policy Templates Pack

2. After downloading the ZIP file, extract it using 7-Zip or other file archive utilities and you’ll get “policy_templates” folder.

3. Now navigate to Policy_Templates\Windows\Admx folder and copy chrome.admx and google.admx files present in Admx folder to C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions\ folder.

4. Now we’ll need to copy language files for our installed locale. Look which sub-folder exists under C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions\ folder in your system. It should be en-US by default. If you installed Windows in different language such as de-DE, es-ES, fr-FR, etc, then the folder name will be different.

Go to the same language folder (in our example en-US) under downloaded Policy_Templates\Windows\Admx folder and copy chrome.adml and google.adml files to C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions\en-US\ folder.

5. Now press WIN+R keys together to launch RUN dialog box and type gpedit.msc and press Enter. It’ll open Group Policy Editor.

6. Go to following section:

7. In right-side pane, look for following option:

8. Double-click on the option and select Disabled option.

Click on Apply and OK buttons.

That’s it. It’ll immediately disable Chrome’s Software Reporter Tool in Windows.

PS: In future, if you decide to re-enable Software Reporter Tool, set the above mentioned option to Default in Group Policy Editor.

METHOD 4: Delete Software_Reporter_Tool.exe File Manually

You can also manually delete or remove the Software_Reporter_Tool.exe file from your computer which will stop the Software Reporter Tool running in your computer.

1. Press WIN+R keys together to launch RUN dialog box, type following and press Enter:

It’ll open SwReporter folder in File Explorer.

2. Double-click on the version number folder such as “100.282.200” and you’ll see software_reporter_tool.exe file present inside the folder.

3. Select the EXE file and press Delete key on your keyboard to delete it.

PS: If you don’t want to delete the executable file, you can rename the file by changing the file extension from .exe to .bak or .old or anything else.

NOTE: This solution is temporary. As soon as Google Chrome web browser is updated to newer version, it’ll automatically re-create the Software_Reporter_Tool.exe in above mentioned folder. To overcome this issue, you can remove all group and user permissions from SwReporter folder containing Software_Reporter_Tool.exe file and Google Chrome will be unable to access and run the executable. Also newer versions of the tool will be unable to install in your computer since you have revoked all permissions and control from the parent folder.

To remove permissions, following article will help you:

[Guide] How to Change Permissions on a File or Folder in Windows?

[UPDATE] Google Removes Software Reporter Tool.exe from Chrome

Here is a good news. Finally Google has removed the problematic Software Reporter Tool from Chrome 111 and later versions. Google announced at the official Security Blog that the company has deleted the Cleanup Tool feature from Chrome 111 and later versions. So users can install or upgrade to Chrome 111 or later version to automatically get rid of the Software Reporter Tool. You’ll no longer need to use any policy or registry tweak to manually disable or remove the Software Reporter Tool. It’ll automatically disappear from your Windows device forever.

In Chrome 111 or later versions, if you check Chrome Settings page, you’ll notice that the previous “Reset and clean up” section in left-side pane has been renamed to “Reset settings“. Also the previous “Clean up computer” option has been permanently removed from the “Reset settings” page.

Following image shows the old and new Settings pages for comparison:

In fact, the direct URL to launch Chrome Cleanup Tool i.e. chrome://settings/cleanup has stopped working in Chrome and now it opens a blank empty page. Previously, it used to open Chrome Cleanup Tool page. The Software Reporter Tool as well as Chrome Cleanup Tool are also no longer present on chrome://components page.

So it’s a good initiative by Google and will please many Chrome users who were looking for ways to disable or remove the Software Reporter Tool from their computer systems.

Also Check:

How to Disable “Microsoft Software Protection Platform Service” Causing High CPU Usage?