This article shall dive deeper into what is acrotray and if it is a virus. We will also find out if it is useful to us.
What is acrotray?
The technical word for acro tray is Adobe Acrobat Tray Icon. In basic terms, it helps in the conversion of documents into various file formats. It is not the most important component of the process, but without it, you won’t be able to effectively convert documents into the many formats Adobe offers. Its responsibilities also include notifying users when they attempt to convert PDF files and keeping track of Adobe Acrobat Reader updates. The Acro tray file is located in the Adobe Acrobat installation directory.
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What is acrotray.exe? Is it harmful?
acrotray.exe is the executable process file which can be found in the task manager. Because it runs in the background, you will not see the work it does until you actively look for it in the task management or by looking up its file location.
There are two answers to whether it is harmful or not:
- NO: You should know that the acrotray.exe process it not harmful to your system. It is an authentic process used by Adobe for your documents. The acro tray file location is C:\ProgramFiles\adobe\acrobat9.0\acrobat\acrobat.exe.
- YES: The acro tray process file could be harmful because malwares sometimes hide by imitating the addresses of executable files, it may be a virus. This makes it extremely difficult for antivirus software to detect these viruses.
To check if the file is a virus, run task manager and look for the file there. The next step involves you to right click on the file and check the file location. If the file location is not in this specified path: C:\ProgramFiles\adobe\acrobat9.0\acrobat\acrobat.exe then the file may be malware.
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Other problems surrounding Acro tray
The virus posing as the legitimate process creates high CPU utilisation issues, not the legitimate executable itself. This is why some people consider the Acrotray.exe executable to be malicious or a virus. Some users just remove or stop legitimate processes since they are unsure whether one is genuine.
With this knowledge, you can now determine which processes are dangerous and which are not. Antivirus programmes like Malwarebytes can also help with malware that masquerade as the acro tray executable file.
Why should we delete the true acro tray file also?
1. It can slow down the PC
Disabling processes that automatically start when you boot your PC is the way to go if you want to improve the speed of your PC’s start up. This is why removing Acrotray.exe may be worthwhile, as it constantly starts operating in the background when the computer is turned on.
2. Even if the CPU is not being used, it gets strained
It is not worth keeping the process unless you use it frequently. You should consider disabling it to save CPU resources. Although the process does not use the CPU much on its own, the malware version can create major problems.
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Final words
This was your complete answer to what is acrotray. I hope you found this article helpful. If you still have any questions related to acrotray you can mention them in the comments down below.