If you have been using Google Chrome web browser on your Windows PC, you may notice very high CPU usage by a process called “Software Reporter Tool”. This tool is a part of the Google Chrome web browser and is installed on your PC when you install Chrome web browser. It is also updated to a new version whenever the Chrome browser is updated.
The purpose of Software Reporter Tool is to check whether any newly installed software is harmful. It scans your hard drive for any malicious software and then reports it to Google. It is actually better to keep it installed and running on your PC. However, it seems to run in many instances and sometimes uses the CPU too much – so much that the PC might become unresponsive for a while.
If you are looking forward to disabling Software Reporter Tool on your Windows PC, then you can follow these steps:
- Press the hotkey Win+R to open the Run dialog. In the Run dialog copy-paste the following and press Enter:
%LocalAppData%\Google\Chrome\User Data\SwReporter\
- In the folder that opens up, there is another folder with the version name such as 91.265.200. Depending on the version of Chrome, this folder will have a different name. Double-click on this folder and you will find the file software_reporter_tool.exe.
- Press Alt+D in the folder opened, type cmd.exe and then press Enter. This will open the command prompt with the folder containing software_reporter_tool.exe already selected.
- Type the following command in the command prompt window:
icacls software_reporter_tool.exe /inheritance:r
- This is it. Now you have disabled Software Reporter Tool on your PC.
If at any later time, you wish to re-enable it, then you can repeat all the same steps except the step 4 above which should be replaced with the following command:
icacls software_reporter_tool.exe /inheritance:e
If Chrome browser gets updated to a new version, you will have to repeat the same steps again because then software_reporter_tool.exe will be placed in a new folder with a different version based name.