Two different PCs. Win 7 Pro. Updated as far as I am able.
One a laptop Toshiba s55t-a5377 and one a desktop PowerSpec.

Both have a small box in the left upper corner of the screen. It can be
brown or blue.
Move the mouse over it and it goes away.

What is it and how to I keep it from appearing ?

How do I trace its origin ?

Any apps that will tell me what is showing on the screen?

I used process explorer and it will not allow me to drop the target icon
on this blue/brown box like I can identify on other apps showing on the
desktop.

Thank you.

Jordan wrote:
> Two different PCs. Win 7 Pro. Updated as far as I am able.
> One a laptop Toshiba s55t-a5377 and one a desktop PowerSpec.
>
> Both have a small box in the left upper corner of the screen. It can be
> brown or blue.
> Move the mouse over it and it goes away.
>
> What is it and how to I keep it from appearing ?
>
> How do I trace its origin ?
>
> Any apps that will tell me what is showing on the screen?
>
> I used process explorer and it will not allow me to drop the target icon
> on this blue/brown box like I can identify on other apps showing on the
> desktop.
>
> Thank you.

https://kurtsthoughts.com/2011/08/02/the-stupid-unmovable-white-box-on-my-desktop/

He used this product (presumably the free version) to identify
his culprit. But this isn't really much more than a Task Manager.

https://www.neuber.com/taskmanager/index.html

Now, something I got the other day, was Spy++.
But this would only work for "orderly" things using
Handles. Not for craftily written graphics outputs
coming from VMR7, VMR9, DirectX3D surfaces, or the like.
Even Microsoft Gadgets might render something in a
non-rectangular surface on the screen. It is a bit
much to expect one program to trace all of those.

https://github.com/westoncampbell/SpyPlusPlus

Click "Code", then "Download ZIP". There are
a number of folders. For example, I used an
executable in "spy14.00.25420" on Windows 10, and
the program started right away. If you use other
versions, they need Visual Studio runtimes installed,
and the program launched will whine if the .NET
or Visual Studio runtime it needs is not present.

Spy++ is not the ideal tool for this either, but
you can have a play with it and see what you can
learn. And I always scan these things on Virustotal,
just for a quick eval.

Paul

Jordan <Jordan@Noplace.com> wrote:

> Two different PCs. Win 7 Pro. Updated as far as I am able.
> One a laptop Toshiba s55t-a5377 and one a desktop PowerSpec.
>
> Both have a small box in the left upper corner of the screen. It can be
> brown or blue.
> Move the mouse over it and it goes away.
>
> What is it and how to I keep it from appearing ?
>
> How do I trace its origin ?
>
> Any apps that will tell me what is showing on the screen?
>
> I used process explorer and it will not allow me to drop the target icon
> on this blue/brown box like I can identify on other apps showing on the
> desktop.
>
> Thank you.

Instead of moving the mouse over the "ghost" window, right-click on the
desktop to select Refresh. Does that make the ghost window disappear?

After moving the mouse cursor over the ghost window which makes it
disappear, does it reappear if you move the mouse cursor off the ghost
window?

Disable all startup programs to see if the ghost window goes away.
You'll then know it was a remnant left by some startup program.