Program running?

On the user account page, before I click on my account, it always says I have one program running, but when I open to my desktop, there's no window open. This has been happening for at least a day, maybe more. No idea how to find out what program is running. Help? Thanks!

Try giving it the 3 finger salute (Ctrl + Alt + Del) when your in the account, in the Applications tab\pane it will list any programs running, but it doesn't always list something running as a program so it may be blank. If that happens click on the Processes tab, that will list all the processes running, and under the CPU column it shows how much (in %'age) something is using, so look for what is using any processes and reply with the name, but take no notice of system idle process, that actually shows in reverse, so if thats showing as 100% it means nothing is running, which is good, it's the other ones we are interested in, so see what this shows and we can go from there.

I don't believe it! It's(whatever it was) been running for a couple of days now, but tonight when I finally got to the computer, the "program running" has disappeared! Should I still do what you've suggested, or wait to see if this starts again?

Well unless it's running I don't think you will be able to identify it, so for now just carry on as normal, and if it happens again try the above to see if it helps identify it.
What you could do in the mean time is to run some scans just to check for any infections or spyware that "may" be behind this, I suggest using Malwarebytes, SUPERAntiSpyware, and a-squared (all have free versions) if you don't have them, but don't be panicked if you get any hits from the scans, many times it's just cookies etc, but it never hurts to scan on a regular basis anyway as part of regular maintenance to keep your system running smooth, hope this helps.

It does help, and I do have Malwarebytes. I'll run a scan tonight. I normally have AVG free running all the time, but I do realize it doesn't catch everything. If I have any hits that aren't cookies, I'll post in the hijackthis forum. Thanks!