openwith.exe task purpose and description:

This OpenWith.exe windows task is a program that was most likely on your system the day you bought your computer especially if you bought Windows 10 or later. It most likely was not installed by you. Always double check the spelling and location which is shown below, as this guarantees you are not looking at an task which could be similiar named spyware or malware, etc. Its just good practice to double check this to make sure it is the same task and same folder location. This OpenWith.exe software is part of your Microsoft Windows system, and its purpose is to identify which software will be used for executing and opening specific file types. You will see this appear in your ctrl-alt-del tasklist and you may even see multiple tasks listed there. Do not attempt to remove OpenWith.exe and do not attempt to kill this task in your tasklist. This software is considered safe and is not virus, spyware, or adware related. (See the details below for the actual location of this file.)

Actual process or task name: (You can view alphabetical task list here)
openwith.exe

File type:
This is an executable file.

Where is this file and folder located on my computer?
This fie will be found on your hard drive at
C:\Windows\System32\OpenWith.exe Like other windows tasks, you may find cached versions in other folders all within the windows folder path.

General information:
Be aware that many tasks will be similiar names to existing tasks or processes. You can always view the running tasks on your computer by pressing ctrl-alt-del to view the windows "task manager", and then view the "processes" tab. This will show you all tasks running or currently active on your PC. Although this shows you all running tasks, it does not show dll file thats are loaded, as they get loaded as part of other processes. Many spyware writers attempt to hide their files on your computer, for example, openwith.exe may be intentionally misspelled to look like a similiar task, or spyware may be named very similiar to a Windows system task. The reason they do this is so you cannot easily recognize the name in your tasklist as I have mentioned above. Make sure always check the location of the file if you are concerned. You can always find the location of openwith.exe on your computer by using your Windows search options, but I will also try to list the file location of every file described on this website, so you can verify the correct location. You can view the entire tasklist directory with the link below.

View entire task list here!