Task List
Name

PROGRAM &
MANUFACTURER

WHAT IT IS
AND WHAT YOU CAN DO
Iamapp IAMAPP.exe

(Symantec)		 Background task which is an essential part of the Norton Internet Security and Norton Personal Firewall security products.

Recommendation :
Leave alone if you are using any of the above two products.

Iamsetup

IAMSETUP.exe

(CallWave)

CallWave’s Internet Answering Machine application. This program enables you to receive phone messages while you are online browsing the web.  Instead of your line signalling "busy" to the caller, Internet Answering Machine answers the call and prompts the caller to leave a message.  As soon as the caller has finished his message, Internet Answering Machine replays it over your speakers.

Recommendation : 
This is not a free service – also, it only works in Canada and the USA. Therefore, if you are not using it, de-install Internet Answering Machine through the "Add/Remove Programs" icon in the Control Panel (the entry to de-install is "CallWave Internet Answering Machine").
Icmon ICMon.exe

(Sophos)		 Sophos AntiVirus InterCheck Activity Monitor.  InterCheck is the on-access virus scanning feature of Sophos AntiVirus.  "On-Access Virus Scanning" means that files are virus scanned in the background as and when they are accessed.  The InterCheck Activity Monitor, ICMON, is no more than a System Tray icon which you can click on to check that on-access virus scanning is enabled (Active), to check how many files have been virus scanned since your last boot, and to see what was the last virus scanned file.

Recommendation :
This is a harmless System Tray icon.  We would suggest to leave it alone so that you are always able to check quickly that your Sophos AntiVirus software is active.
Iconfig Iconfig.exe

(Shuttle Technology / now SCM MicroSystems)		 System Tray background task which gets installed by the drivers for Shuttle Technology products (now part of SCM MicroSystems).  SCM MicroSystems is an OEM manufacturer – that is, it makes/assembles the original products which are then sold under various badges by other companies (e.g. DataFab, Hewlett-Packard, Apple, etc..).  The products include USB card readers, USB CD-Writers, USB Zip or Flash Drives, USB LS-120 drives, etc..  ICONFIG sits in the System Tray and its sole purpose seems to be to provide connection and status info about your USB device.

Recommendation :
On some systems, and depending on which reselling manufacturer has adapted the original drivers, ICONFIG hogs resources and also causes crashes.  Disable with Starter if you have unexplained problems.

Icsmgr

ICSMGR.exe

(Microsoft)

ICSMGR gets installed on any PC which shares an Internet connection using Microsoft’s Internet Connection Sharing protocol (ICS). This program, which relays all DNS and DHCP requests, is vital if your PC is accessing the Internet via ICS.

Recommendation : 
Leave alone if you are on an ICS network.  If you are not, remove Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) from the Network icon in your Control Panel as its presence can often cause [sometimes serious] conflicts or unnecessary complications when you are configuring network components of your PC.
Iexplore IExplore.exe

(Microsoft)		 You have Microsoft’s Internet Explorer running !
Igfxtray IGFxTray.exe

(Intel)		 Intel Graphics Tray. System Tray icon which gets installed with the drivers for onboard VGA cards based on the Intel 81x graphics chipset. Double-clicking on it enables you to quickly change the display resolution, save your current Display Scheme, or configure your onboard graphics card.  You can also configure keyboard hotkeys (shortcuts – this is handled by another background task called HKCMD).  You can access the same features through the "Intel Graphics Technology" icon in the Control Panel.

Recommendation :
Although great in theory, on some PCs we have found that whenever IGFXTRAY and HKCMD are running, Windows Explorer is prone to hanging and showing as "not responding" in the Task List.  Our recommendation, therefore, is that you should not have this tray icon running, and that you should also not use the hotkey facility that comes with it.  Disable both IGFXTRAY and HKCMD with Startup Manager.

Imgicon

Imgicon.exe

(Iomega)

Background Iomega program which gets installed when you install Iomega’s Zip Drive Windows software (IomegaWare).  IMGICON displays pretty life-like icons for any Zip drives you have in your PC, whether internal or external (Parallel, USB, Firewire).  These icons look exactly like the actual drives and you can even tell whether the drives are external or internal.

Recommendation :
The visual differentiation provided by IMGICON’s iconisation is extremely useful, particularly for non-technical users, so we would recommend you keep the IomegaWare software even though it is not actually needed for internal zip drives since Windows has inbuilt support for internal zip drives without any additional drivers.  Note, however, that our experience under Windows 95 and Windows 98 is that the IomegaWare software can create conflicts or random problems with parallel port devices (eg. your printer).  If you experience such problems then go to our Drivers section and download the very latest IomegaWare drivers as these newer drivers (as of March 2002) seem to have cured all the problems.
Imonnt IMonNT.exe

(Intel)		 Windows NT4/2000/XP version of IMONTRAY below.
Imontray IMonTray.exe

(Intel)		 System Tray icon for the Intel Active Monitor utilities that come with the chipset drivers for Intel chipset based motherboards. Asus have similar utilities – it enables you to monitor your CPU and motherboard temperature, the various fan speeds, and the voltages, all within Windows without going back into the BIOS to see such information.  You can also set up alert thresholds for the software to alert you when, for example, the system temperature gets too high.

Recommendation :
If you live in a hot part of the world, or you experience very hot summers, and you have no air conditioning, then this is a very useful utility to alert you of impending overheating of your PC.  It is also useful in areas or buildings with power problems and where your PC is not protected by an AVR based UPS (Automatic Voltage Regulator).  In all other cases this utility is of very little practical use, so you may want to disable it with Startup Manager to reduce the System Tray clutter. Note that on laptops IMONTRAY can cause crashes if you change a PCMCIA card (PC card) while the laptop is running – if that happens to you, then disable Intel Active Monitor.
Inetinfo Inetinfo.exe

(Microsoft)		 Microsoft Internet Information Service. Seen primarily on Windows NT4/2000 Server where it provides Internet Proxy and Web Server services.

Recommendation :
If you use either of the above facilities, leave running, otherwise you can set the service to manual.
Instantaccess InstantAccess.exe


(Xerox)		 Background program which interacts with Xerox Textbridge’s Instant Access feature app.  This gets installed when you install the Xerox Textbridge OCR software.  Few users use Instant Access.  Worse, we have experienced this background program to often cause software installation problems.

Recommendation :
Not necessary, Instant Access works perfectly well without this background program having been pre-loaded at boot-up.  Delete with Starter (where it may show as INSTAN~1.EXE).

Internat

Internat.exe

(Microsoft)

This Microsoft Windows program provides multilanguage support.  It will typically be running if you turned ON more than one keyboard language, or if you installed some or all the language options in Internet Explorer 5.0 or later.  In rare circumstances it conflicts with the Help in Access 97.

 Recommendation :
Unless you have the specific Access 97 problem above, this program is harmless.  So it is up to you if you want to keep it or if you want to disable it with Startup Manager.

Internet Answering Machine

IAMSETUP.exe

(CallWave)

See IAMSETUP entry above.

Iowatch

IOWatch.exe

(Iomega)

Iomega Watch.  This background task, installed with the IomegaWare Zip/Jazz drive software, automatically prompts the user for a password whenever a read-write protected disk is inserted into the Zip/Jazz drive.

Recommendation : 
Essential if you protect your Zip/Jazz disks with Iomega Tools.  The earlier versions of Iowatch caused conflicts with other software under Windows 95/98.  If you use a really old version of IomegaWare (Iomega Tools 95), and you are experiencing problems, then go to our Drivers page and download and install the current version of IomegaWare.
Iqrobot Iqrobot.exe

Remind.exe

(Hewlett-Packard)		 Registration Reminder Program which gets installed with some HP drivers and which pops up a reminder to register your printer.

Recommendation :
Disable this task with Starter. Useless.
Irmon Irmon.exe

(Microsoft)		 Infrared Monitor.  System Tray icon which enables you to monitor your Infrared connections :  you can see which infrared device you are communicating with and monitor file or data transfer.  Typically installed by default on laptops where infrared is most commonly used (with mobile phones), rather than on desktop PCs.

Recommendation :
If you do not want that icon cluttering your System Tray (ie: you never use Infrared), go to the "Wireless Link" icon in the Control Panel and disable Display an icon on the taskbar.
Isass isass.exe does not exist See LSASS.
Isdbdc Isdbdc.exe

(Compaq / Trident??)		 Background task found solely on Compaq Presario PCs and which seems to be related to the Trident graphics video drivers – but we are not certain about that. We do not know what this task does.

Recommendation :
If you intend to use Adobe products, make sure you have the latest Trident drivers as there seems to be a conflict between the early versions of ISDBDC and some Adobe products, resulting in "Invalid Page Fault" errors.  Other than that, as we do not know what this task does we can only recommend that you leave it alone.
Iss_srvr ISS_Srvr.exe

(Intel)		 Internet Sharing Server task which is part of the Intel AnyPoint network software.  This task enables the PC on which it is running, to be the Internet gateway for the other PCs connected to the Intel AnyPoint network.

Recommendation :
Essential to the proper running of your Intel AnyPoint network – leave alone.
Istsvc ISTSvc.exe

(Integrated Search Technologies)		 Internet Explorer Toolbar picked up mainly on pornographic sites.  While it can be responsible for popup advertisements, its purpose is mainly to provide an Internet Explorer toolbar which enables the end-user to (we quote) "find the best adult material available on the net".

Recommendation :
Down to end-user preference.  It can be de-installed via the "Add/Remove Programs" icon in the Control Panel.  Once done, to ensure complete removal also run Spybot Search & Destroy from our Downloads library.
Iwctrl IWCtrl.exe

(NovaStor Corporation)		 NovaStor’s Instant Write Control Center.  Instant Write is the packet writing portion of the NovaDisk CD/DVD mastering software for Windows 95/98. Packet writing software is software which enables the end-user to put data on a CD directly from any Windows application, e.g. drag and drop from Windows Explorer, saving a document from within your wordprocessor, etc...

Recommendation :
NovaDisk is an old no longer supported product.  If your CD-Writer is that old, the likelihood is that it will soon need replacing with a newer one.  All CD-Writers come nowadays with some CD-Writing software, so when you eventually replace your CD-Writer, install and use the newer software also (after first de-installing NovaDisk).