Acwebbrowser.exe
Tory Lattin
Agreed, @dgorsman. I did some fairly thorough searching with Google and in the forums and didn't find anything very clear on what the purpose of that process is. Would be great if someone from Autodesk could shed some light.
@smilinger, I'd recommend posting this to the General Discussion forum and asking what the process is for. It's more likely an Autodesk developer will see it over there and give some info about what it does. Then, supposing it is an extraneous process, you could come back here and lend this idea more credibility by explaining why the process isn't necessary.
Regarding the multiple processes; yes that's normal. They relate to an embedded Chrome component which is now being used in a variety of ways. For Inventor we use it to display the MyHome screen; it's also used as part of the licensing module & within the Autodesk Desktop App.
So basically, it's used to... do stuff. It definitely has a function. But it would be great if Autodesk could somehow consolidate how this process is being used and reduce the number if instances. Or even roll up whatever it does into the main process for each program. Of course, that's easy for me to say
If you enable the Command line column in task manager then you will see a bit more info about what they are for. Anytign with CLM in the command path relates to licensing. Other product specific commands will relate to MyHome, Welcome screen, Design Share, Tutorials,.....It was designed this way to improve performance instead of rolling all of this processing into a single exe. Not really multi-threading but multi-processing which improves performance.
In my opinion commands such as MyHome, Welcome screen, Design Share, Tutorials, License, etc. are rarely used in everyday work, it is not worth it to open so many processes in the background for that little performance gain.
Frankly, this seems a little unreasonable. If every software I use opened half a dozen sub-process per application like this, I'd be tearing my hair out every time I had to use the Task Manger. There's got to be a better way...
Also... why are 22 of those related to licensing? ... 22! I only have 3 instances of Inventor, 1 instance of AutoCAD, and 1 instance of CFD open. Five instances... TWENTY-TWO license-related processes. Surely that's excessive by any standard...
Later as work changed I trained on AC from R14 to AC 2012, Inventor and AC Electrical 2012. My contribution to the AutoDESK ACE forum on ACE gained me the MENTOR status. SO I have some deep understanding of how some AC applications work.
So PLEASE AutoDESK your customers are not dreaming, They and I are having problems. I can solve mine. I have another CAD programmes DEVCAD, BEntley or DRAFTSIGHT that soon I will install and learn. Actually I am not looking forward to this solution. I intend getting help to remove ACWEBBROWSER from the registry.
When I was a mainframe fixer fella often problems would occur where combinations of computer equipment was all good quality but did not work in any harmony. It was necessary to get all vendors together and solve the problem with out malice to anyone.
AcWebBrowser is an embedded Chrome frame which runs in the context of certain Autodesk products. It's used for the Autodesk Desktop App, the licensing modules, the Welcome/Home screen in more recent versions of ACAD & Inventor. Chrome itself does not use it or depend on it.
See the info above - if you look at the command line for Task Manager processes you should be able to determine which folder AcWebBrowser is running from. Based on your info I suspect it's the Autodesk Desktop App, that's used to automatically update Autodesk software & inform you about relevant new information for the products you have. It can be uninstalled from Control Panel, Add/Remove programs.
You're confusing things; there is no relation between the Chrome application itself & acwebbrowser.exe. That exe is an Autodesk exe which leverages a chrome frame module to display html5 content within the Autodesk products. They do not interact with eachother which explains your statement above, 9that your other PC has chrome but not acwebbrowser & no Autodesk products.
The only way your PC can get acwebbrowser is by installing Autodesk products. You can uninstall the individual products & Autodesk Desktop App, (previously called Autodesk Application manager) from control panel.
As mentioned above if you look at the command line in task manager that will tell you which folder the exe is running from & that will give you a clue as to which Autodesk product/module installed it.
When you stated " AcWebBrowser is an embedded Chrome frame which runs in the context of certain Autodesk products." I assumed that AcWebBrowser became analogous to a subroutine of Chrome. But then PCs work so differently to the HP UNIX RISC machines of the 80s.
Some respondents say it will not cause any harm. It depends on what is harm. The harm for me is the battery going flat quickly when I am out flying my model aeroplanes and need to down load data on the field.
FYI, @Anonymous, what Chris was suggesting in his most recent post was to enable the "Command Line" column in the Task Manager so that you can determine which software is utilizing the acwebbrowser.exe process, and then uninstall that program so that acwebbrowwer.exe no longer hogs your CPU (or perhaps simply disable some feature in that software which will prevent it from needing and firing the acwebbrowser.exe process).
To display the "Command Line" column, simply go to the Processes tab in Task Manager, click on "View", "Select Columns", then find "Command Line" and make sure it's checked. Then find your acwebbrowser.exe process, and see what the Command Line column says. It should give you an idea of which Autodesk application is using the process. Per Chris's earlier post, anything with CLM in the command path relates to licensing. Any other process should be program-specific and have the respective program's name somewhere near the beginning (after C:\Program Files\Autodesk).
If you post here which 3 programs the Command Line column indicates are utilizing the acwebbrowser.exe process, then Chris can tell you the best way to prevent those programs from firing the acwebbrowser.exe process.
I have read above discussion about acwebbrowser.exe instances in windows task manager. However, I am not sure that I understood everything. Never mind. I do not have problems with CPU usage but with memory usage. So I am searching for every chance to reduce memory usage %.
Okay so I tried all the methods above, and the only one that actually killed it was to go into task manager, under "startup" right click the Autodesk icon and disable, then go into "details" and right click -> "end process tree" on the autodesk desktop program. That immediately killed all the clones of acwebbrowser.exe, and my computer is finally silent again...
I just found out that process too, and as I was reading the replies, obviously it's the Autodesk Desktop App running in the background, looking for updates for your installed Autodesk products. What amazes me is that nobody (Even the Autodesk Specialists...) suggested to simply uninstall the Autodesk Desktop App from the Control Panel... Just sayin'
1. Attachment is the recommended resolution to your case:
The AcWebBrowser.exe" is an application that gets launched with running an Autodesk program,
that allows these programs to browse out to the web for common data.
Some common functions that utilize this application are the "Geolocation" tools, "Help" dialogs etc.
If it do cause software performance, you could disable it manually.
Thanks for contacting with Autodesk Technical Support.
From technical document, ACWebBrowser.exe is the core app about Autodesk Desktop App.
So any functions using Autodesk Desktop will use ACWebBrowser.exe.
Autodesk Desktop App is the platform for Autodesk Customer contact Autodesk via network.
You could download software, update, submit case to Autodesk and so on.
These function you could access website (e.g. manage.autodesk.com or knowledge.autodesk.com) directly.
Please see
Autodesk Desktop App: Exploring the Features and Benefits of AutoCAD about more information.
In this situation, you could uninstall Autodesk Desktop App from your computer,
there ACWebBrowser.exe will not affect performance of software. This will not affect Autodesk Product using.
Go to Windows Control Panel to uninstall Autodesk Desktop App.
Thanks for contacting with Autodesk Technical Support.
Tried the "delete the folder" option to fix this, but task manager cannot kill the three instances of this program running on my computer. As soon as I kill one of the instances, it instantly re-appears.
The acwebbrowser.exe process is also known as Chromium host executable and is a part of Autodesk Browser Components or, as the case may be, Autodesk fXNgbv Av. This software is produced by Autodesk (www.autodesk.com). An obsolete or defective version of acwebbrowser.exe can cause problems for your computer that can range from slowness to error messages such as these:
acwebbrowser.exe is not part of Windows, but it is important nonetheless. Acwebbrowser.exe is found in a subdirectory of "C:\Program Files".Frequently occurring are file sizes such as 485,672 bytes (77% of all these files), 537,400 bytes or, as the case may be, 382,976 bytes.
The application does not appear as a visible window, but only in Task Manager. It was developed by a so-called third party provider - and not by Microsoft. The original file has been signed by a trusted signature authority. This lets you check your copy to see if it is a counterfeit. It contains a digital signature from Verisign, a subsidiary of Symantec. Verisign thereby confirms this file's authenticity and integrity.For this reason, 25% of all experts consider this file to be a possible threat. The probability that it can cause harm is high.