QuickBooks resource management in Windows has always been atrocious. Even if you don’t need an app or service, Intuit loads it, and doesn’t close said ancillary applications and services after you close QuickBooks. The only acceptable reasons are sharing company files over the network, or so an app reopens faster after closing.
Let’s be real… QB users that need the app multiple times per day, or share their company file, generally leave QuickBooks open. I open QB when I need to create an invoice or take a payment, which is seldom a daily occurrence, much less needing it multiple times per day. Those who accidentally close it on accident… oh well, be more careful. 🤡
It’s bad enough that Intuit QuickBooks’ application performance has degraded so badly over the years; seemingly worse since they started pushing an SaaS subscription model. Do everyone a favor and stop wasting system resources after QuickBooks is closed. 🤷♂️
Now that my rant is over… save the following commands to a file named something like quickbooks-housekeeping.ps1
and run it with Windows PowerShell. Note: That if
block self-elevates the script to run as an administrator.
if(!([Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal][Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent()).IsInRole([Security.Principal.WindowsBuiltInRole]'Administrator')){Start-Process PowerShell.exe -Verb RunAs -ArgumentList ("-NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File `"{0}`"" -f $PSCommandPath);Exit}
Write-Host "Closing QuickBooks processes..."
Get-Process qb*, *quickbooks* | Stop-Process -Force -PassThru
Read-Host -Prompt "`nPress [Enter] to exit"
That’s it! No more application clutter from Intuit. 🙂
To bypass output and exit confirmation, remove Write-Host
, Read-Host
and the -PassThru
argument of Stop-Process
.
Get-Process qb*, *quickbooks* | Stop-Process -Force
Gonna rant just a little more…
What is App32.exe? I know it’s part of QuickBooks, but what the hell does it do?
Maybe make sure you give all your applications Intuit(ive) names. 🤔
Lordy. I’m ranting right along with you, mate.
QBDPro 2024 (and all versions previous) are *easily* the most piggish and poorly optimized bits of software I’ve ever used; I’m more than a bit OCD about such things on my personal workstation (or any) as I’m an ex software developer and outside of the wee bit of QB work I do weekly for our family company, I otherwise spend 8 to 12 hours a day on my workstation seeing to other projects (PC overclocking/modification/tuning, gaming, visual/video/interface design work and have a fairly healthy and daily comms process with other like-minded folk all over the globe via various forums and communities like discord/etc).
To say I’m nit picky over the stability of my workstation(s) would be understating an understatement.
I will literally go full Accountant™ mode (think Ben Affleck movie) when I can’t identify and know that *every* process running in the background is actually useful and “has a purpose” AT THAT MOMENT. I don’t quite get to grinding my shins with a metal pipe but QBDPro is pushing me so close. 😉
It’s an ungodly bad piece of work, QB Desktop. I could write a short novella describing how much I hate it lol (and likely will here in this reply).
I’ve tried your script, thanks for that by the way, but certain QB processes still reappear once I actually start QB to do some work and after I’ve closed the program (maybe 1 to 3 hours, three days a week).
Namely these two processes are particularly persistent:
1. qbupdate.exe (aka QuickBooks Automatic Update)
2. Intuit.QuickBooks.FCS.exe (aka QuickBooks FCS Module)
I’ve tried your script which worked rather well until I ran QB again at which point, those two feckers show back up; I’ve also tried the /occasionally/ effective, good ‘ole rename-the-file trick (qbupdate.exe to qbudate.BAK), etc. But the little bastards keep coming back. Between these two fascist-processes lol … they are constantly using a collective 19mb+ of system ram though fortunately, CPU cycles seem to remain at 0% for both.
But it’s perpetually vexing that even ~20mb of system ram is being used for /nothing/! Drives me crazy.
Every program needs a purpose and short of finding the Keymaker (Neo would be better), I’m hunting for any way to 100% destroy these things that actually work and STAY working.
I may try refining your script or otherwise setting it up to run periodically via task scheduler (haven’t done this yet).
I also am going to scrub the intrawebz for some small DIY app of the sort that will actually prevent any program/exe from ever running on the machine, similar to the ability to block any given process from accessing in/out bound connections via Win Firewall.
I have a very effective, free tool from a dev group called “Sordum” that allows one to right click any .EXE and automatically block it in Win Firewall (saving the typical few steps to do the same thing manually) so I’m hoping somebody out there has cobbled together a small, “portable” util to do the same with simply keeping any given .EXE from ever actually executing (much less existing on the file system).
You seem to know your way about software/hardware so thought I’d recommend you check out the tiny, standalone utils that the Sordum software group release 100% free, all of which are generally aimed at neatly solving/tweaking various Windows system attributes. They make simple, intentionally small-footprint tools that work phenomenally and, as a former software dev myself, can very much say are put together well. A rare thing. FWIW, here is their website: sordum DOT org
Another option is to literally install a completely fresh Win 11 OS on a dedicated NVME, then install QB on that “quarantine” drive and just boot via that NVME/OS any time I know I’ll have a QB session/work to do. This option is not too unattractive but I would rather avoid it.
I also have another dedicated workstation in my office that I might relegate/designate as the only machine to use Quickbooks on and remove everything completely from my primary dairly-driver rig. Both are i9 14900K based rigs and have about identical disk/memory subsystems so either would be okay to do QB work on.
Lastly, I have a 10700K based mobile rig that would be even more attractive to use as my QB “beater” workstation but QB is just such a ludicrously slow program (to get going, initially) that if I have to wait 4 to 5 minutes to let QB get itself together after launching on a 14900K running on a RAID0 NVME volume, then I’m not sure if I could stand the torture of that same startup lag on my 10th gen mobile rig. It’s an option, though.
Anyway. Thanks again for your script. That’s a nice, brief and (somewhat for me) effective work around.
I haven’t done any digging but it would be nice if Intuit (a horrible company name considering these issues) had a “portable version” option available so that one would not have to install the entire monster of a program at all.
If QB versions didn’t change so often and if their lockdown of previous version company files wasn’t so militantly enforced after updating to a new revision? I’d have already found a (ahem) … semi-modified portable version of QB via less than ethical sources but shiza, … the software is such a wreck that I’d lose no sleep over such a solution.
As it is, we’ve renewed our QB 2024 license recently so I have a year or so to ‘suss the mess; at renewal time, I’ll have to get with our accountant and talk about other options. Our tasks with QB are very basic. I input invoices, post deposits, input bills, record handwritten company checks and issue statements. We haven’t used payroll services via QB in a few years and nor do we have any sort of banking integration. QB has zero involvement with either my local network or the internet in general.
Feel free to let me know if you’ve further refined your tactics on preventing these ridiculous background processes from resurrecting themselves or any other tips/etc. In light of my above rant.
Apologies in advance for the short novella; I mentioned way up above that I’d likely end up penning a thesis about this shite and so I did.
Best regards,
Joel
Unfortunately there isn’t much that can be done about apps spawning from another process. Untested: manual antivirus quarantine of unwanted executables might keep them from running 🤔
That PowerShell script was mainly an example of how PS could be used to kill processes with wildcards. Being grumpy about QB in-the-moment made it my target 🎯
When I want to kill background processes, I usually restart my PC since startup apps are kept at a bare-minimum (eg: only 3 of 27 enabled).
Your VM suggestion is best to keep QB’s junk isolated, but generally beyond the capabilities or concern of most users 🤣
Note: Removed YouTube URL from Author details; Removed full Sordum URL, but human-readable reference remains. Having no experience with Sordum’s tools, I cannot endorse or denounce their safety or efficacy.