Windows users will be familiar with the old three-finger shuffle, control-alt-delete, invented by my namesake at IBM as a debugging tool. Today, ^-alt-del brings up the Task Manager rather than rebooting a PC, and therein lie many mysteries. Weird processes run within with names like “svchost.exe“, “jusched.exe”, and “ctfmon.exe”. Some processes will be obvious, “firefox.exe” for instance, but what that jusched.exe one? It sounds like it may be something to do with scheduling, but what would “jus” be?

Sciencetext readers are obviously just as keen to know what’s running in the background on their PCs as I, so here’s a quick explanation of jusched.exe: According to Process Library, jusched.exe is simply the update scheduler for Sun Microsystem’s Java suite. It calls home and checks for Java updates. If you use Java (perhaps installed as part of your web browser) it will be important to keep it up to date for security as well as functionality reasons, so it’s best to leave jusched.exe to go about its business in the background.

If you’re curious about any other entries you see when you open Task Manager, then leave a comment here giving precise details and the name of the entry and I’ll see what I can find out about it for you.