Windows Reader (glcnd.exe) running as a background process on Windows startup!

[BLaZiNgSPEED]

I had a problem yesterday with the Windows store app following my attempt to erase the prefetch folder. The Windows store kept launching on Windows start up by itself and I didn't know how to stop it. Never had the problem for more than 3 years since using Windows 8.1!

I ran a Windows System restore from a date more than 10 days ago. This took care of the problem and now Windows store won't launch on Windows start up.

But now I have a new problem and that is that this Windows Reader (glcnd.exe) keeps launching on Windows start up. None of the other Metro apps would do this. Actually the Weather app was also causing this issue and I got fed-up and uninstalled the Weather app.

But now I have this problem with Windows Reader. It auto-loads at startup, and if I kill it in task manager, it re-appears in the "background process" section after a few minutes. It's not present in "Startup" section of task manager, so it should not start automatically with Windows. But it doesn't close itself either.

I can alternatively uninstall Windows Reader and install Adobe Acrobat Reader instead. But I was quite happy with the Windows Reader and would like to know if there is a solution to this issue without having to uninstall it?

Many thanks.

 

[BLaZiNgSPEED]

I decided to give up and found a better solution instead! I found an alternative PDF reader Sumatra. 10 Best Free PDF Reader Software For Windows (2018 Edition)
Sumatra was listed as a top 10 number 1 free PDF reader and it is only 5MB in size and uses less resources. For the same PDF file on average this consumed 60MB RAM whereas Windows Reader was consuming 83MB RAM.

I set SumatraPDF as a default PDF reader. Tried restarting the computer again and saw Windows Reader (glcnd.exe) run in the background. On app history it continued to be triggered. This indicated that no other PDF file really triggered Windows Reader to pop up. So I finally had enough and decided to uninstall Windows Reader as I have not seen it to really have any advantages over this alternative PDF program.

Since then on boot up it is now clean, no more Windows Metro apps launching on start-up! And the App History tab is also now clean at 0 CPU Time, etc along with the Store app which is also now on 0.

So my suggestion is if like me you have this problem or it started emerging don't bother troubleshooting Windows Reader. Simply uninstall it and use an alternative PDF reader instead. No more problems!