What is tfswctrl.exe? Is tfswctrl.exe spyware or a virus?
How to fix tfswctrl.exe related problems?
1. Run Security Task Manager to check your tfswctrl process
2. Run a Windows Repair Tool to fix tfswctrl.exe related PC problems
3. Run an Antivirus to find persistent malware
Process name: Drive Letter Access Component
Product: DirectCD
Support: Help link Update link Uninstall tool
Company: HP, Veritas, Sonic Solutions
File: tfswctrl.exe
Security Rating:
A process that provides drive letter access to the HP and Veritas versions of DirectCD; it does the same thing as DirectCD. HP says: "This is a needed file as it controls the readability of the Combo drives. Without this file loading the end user will be able to burn CD's but wont be able to read them. The drive itself will be able to read store bought master CD's without the file, but not burnt ones."
Get more detailed information about tfswctrl.exe and all other running background processes with Security Task Manager.
Note: Any malware can be named anything - so you should check where the files of the running processes are located on your disk. If a "non-Microsoft" .exe file is located in the C:\Windows or C:\Windows\System32 folder, then there is a high risk for a virus, spyware, trojan or worm infection! Check it out!
Click to Run a Free Scan for tfswctrl.exe related Errors
Users Opinions
Average user rating of tfswctrl.exe: based on 108 votes. Read also the 116 reviews.
203 users ask for this file. 38 users rated it as not dangerous. 9 users rated it as not so dangerous. 25 users rated it as neutral. 20 users rated it as little bit dangerous. 16 users rated it as dangerous. 19 users didn't rate it ("don't know").
| All comments about tfswctrl.exe: | |
|---|---|
| Part of Sonic Solutions DVD/CD Suite & provides drive letter access to drive Jon Dyson | |
| Drive Letter Access (DLA) - do NOT use in Win 2k3 Server | |
| tfswctrl causes many of my apps to give a "please insert correct DVD/CD to continue installation (or to start program)" when i AM inserting correct disc. See also: Link joecellphone0000 | |
| tfswctrl.exe causes a Direct Acces Component crash on XP-Pro startup Don Catterson | |
| Installed with Sonic Record Now! CD burning software (might be pre-installed on IBM thinkpad) See also: Link JM | |
| This is caused by the Veritas file 'tfswctrl.exe'. From the Windows desktop click on start- search Go to the ‘All Files or Folders’ option and type in “tfswctrl”. Once Windows has located the file, rename their file type suffix(e.g. tfswctrl.exe to tfswctrl.ex_ or tfswctrl.sys to tfswctrl.sy_). Darlene | |
| Made by Veritas, came pre-installed on my IBM ThinkPad A31, this app frequently crashes when I "un-hibernate" the laptop Scott | |
| It was installed on my Dell computer which includes Sonic CD writer software. DO NOT install Direct CD as well. The system will be unstable because of conflicts because both are loaded at startup. beltwayrider | |
| not much but is a pain when you want to restart or shutdown your computer. Don Jensen | |
| When I shutdown W2000 I get a message telling me that this app is 'not responding' J. Ponte | |
| installed a Plextor PX-16A DVD Burner in my Dell 2400. Every time I insert a DVD to play, the computer "dumps" completely shuts down. When I turn off the tfswctrl, everything works fine. Dave | |
| This program is NOT-essential, but SHOULD NOT be terminated unless causing severe problems John Sousa | |
| It has a unique payload of orbit byte twisters. It can be used to adapt write requests to network requests by a simple switch. Jarn McCloy | |
| Get Direct Access Component error frequently when make referral to or often even when just load DVD disk in DVD rewriter drive. Can read from drive but can't write to it. Dorothy | |
| My 3.2 GHz computer frequently lapses into slow motion, processes everything at a snail's pace, Only solution is to reboot. While the machine is trying to shut down I get the message twfsctrl is not responding. Tom | |
| I believe this changes the POP3 account to 127.0.0.1 in Outlook Express | |
| XoftSpy claimed it was a Trojan by the name of "Trojan/CWS Combo" Hanshi | |
| Causes Direct Access Component crash on startup on my IBM ThinkPad Mike | |
| It often gives me the error message "Memory could not be written" when I reboot. Ted Lyngmo | |
| When logging off, a message states that it did not shutdown correctly. A. Knutson | |
| It was installed on my Dell computer which includes Sonic CD writer software Hotti | |
| its a sonic mydvd file, dont mind it Niall Mc | |
| I had tfswctrl.exe crash when I was trying to restart my Windows XP computer. In my case this file is associated with Sonic RecordNow. Matt Bowden | |
| its on my dell inspiron 600m, can i disable this without giving me problems?? metro | |
| Pre-installed on new Dells docrings | |
| I could not burn DVDs using MyDVD; Sonic tech advised that if files direcd.exe, dragtocd.exe, tfswctrl.exe, incd.exe and or b'sclip.exe we running (check in Task Manager/Process) to terminate the process and try burning again. VstevieV | |
| My computer was running slow so I restarted it and not it wont let me click on anything on the desktop and the drive letter access error report is the only thing that pops up. I can only click dont send. Jesse | |
| I agree with several of the opinions above. It causes problems with my Dell - causes the whole system to slow or freeze. Disable it using MSCONFIG. Robert | |
| It causes my 3 Ghz Pentium HT-4 based system to often freeze. I wish I could disable or get rid of it. Any solutions from anyone else? Animesh | |
| I think Nero installed it. Causes Direct Access Component crash on startup on my IBM ThinkPad. Also causes BSOD at shutdown. Stevo | |
| Only what I have found on the web. I don't have a HP drive or Sonic My DVD programs. I'm not sure how it has been installed. Hate auto installs | |
| This conflicts with Backup Pro (comes with Rev Drives) and causes a 2-3 minute hang when the system boots (after login). Stewart | |
| Causes severe slowdown of computer. Uses up 100% of computer resources on my "new" dell laptop. Keith | |
| When logging off, a message appears, have to end process so logging off can continue Stephanie | |
| It will make certain dell gen computers not be able to Shutdown properly Paul | |
| Causes Windows XP Pro to hang on start and shutdown Dan | |
| Paul Collins is right wayne Meredith | |
| When I shut down or restart my pc it says the program not responding justice | |
| It crashes Windows totaly and i cant get pass it. Janne | |
| tfswctrl.exe is part of the DLA application that is pre-loaded on IBM machines. DLA is intended to provide drag/drop of files to a CD writer, but it is crap. tfswctrl caused blue screens with my new Plextor drive. Uninstalled DLA to get rid of tfswctrl, and everything is fine. rmcgee | |
| makes shutting down the computor difficult - a message comes up and says that it is "not responding" Joanne | |
| does not shut down properly on my computer quite often Keith Garner | |
| Works for the DVD/CR-RW Combo drive juan | |
| Allow access to a CD-RW or a DVD-RW like a standard hard disk ppf | |
| not dangerous at all... YoUr AlL cRaZy | |
| Seems to come on Dells too, dosen't seem to really be a problem to let it run. Dylan | |
| Why would it change the server in OExpress? possibly a virus infected that file, because there is no reason for it to. Your av software may change it to 127.0.0.1 also Kayton Knax | |
| Seems to have come on my new Dell, causes problems when I plug in my external USB Plextor DVD burner - causes PC to lock up and I can only hard reboot. tfswctrl.exe won't shut down. when i loaded s/w that came with Plextor (Roxio 6), nothing worked at all. goldawg | |
| it shows an error on startup and i have no taskabar and the graphics are all screwed | |
| When something hangs up on the Inspiron9100 or Dell Workstation 220, this is usually found as the problem. Didrik | |
| Pinnacle says tfswctrl.exe is why my DVD's won't burn when using Studio9. But it doesn't go away when I try to kill the process, or the process tree. I also tried killing the process with killbox.exe and that didn't work either. Like other's, I also have a dell with sonic, which may be the instigator. wes | |
| MS-config disable the crap and it just wont do anymore trouble, you can live with winxp default tool, aso try to update since the one on my laptop works perfect (a pavillion dv4000) and my dads hangs(dell9300-but i disabled it), try to update, or just leave it disabled (BTW i have never missed a function like direct CD an i have been burning forever, just rigth clik and choose send to and it would do pretty much the sme and beeter and it comes from roxio) Juan | |
| Terrible. Burn 2 CDs and it causes intermittent freezing. Only solution is restart comp. I'm using WinXP Eric D | |
| Causes problems when inserting CD to burn, using Sonic Record Now on my Thinkpad R50e. Program freezes, disk cannot be ejected. Only solution is to reset. Sandra Rowland | |
| does not terminiate at shutdown IBM computer mkozlowski | |
| HP.com has an update, they say early ver. don't work w/ SP-2 See also: Link Dan Seaman | |
| Installed with Sonic MyDVD. Hangs the machine to a crawl when watching DVD's. Won't terminate using Windows Task Manager. What a pain Don Johnson | |
| HP Printers occasionally install this service ZeboBeeznurd | |
| Don't know nothing except get a pop up window on starting my computer about this file Trying to get rid of this | |
| Linked to some software not functioning properly on my XP. Ben | |
| Crashes Direct access component on startup on my thinkpad T41p Arni | |
| My network of 80+ Dell workstations came pre-installed with Sonic RecordNow have intermittent performance issues and slow log-off. The tfswctl.exe usually hangs when this happens. I'm going to take Roberts advice to disable it and see what happens Matt | |
| Causes my dell dimension 3100 with xp pro sp2 to not be able to shutdown properly. and mouse click function disabled. mike zahra | |
| Used for Veritas removable backup to disk\Can Hang! Paul... | |
| I found that while on dial up service, my computer was sending a high rate of data to the degree that I couldn't receive data. So I started eliminating processes thru Task Manager and when I killed this process, the outgoing stopped. By the time I had killed it, it had sent 13MB somewhere. Weird. Jay Simpson | |
| I watch my running processes and this one is new. No HP hardware other than a printer, and this allegedly has to do with CDR reading. Matt | |
| I think I picked this up after loading files from a CD I burned on my parent's computer. I also have a ThinkPad, and I find all of the error messages annoying. kim | |
| Causes Program is Not rsponding dialog box ech time I Shut down or restart XP tictac | |
| Doesn't shut down for me, either. The question is: other than uninstalling it, how can we get it to behave? Dave Menconi | |
| It seemed to appear when I loaded a new program onto my new dell. It took two weeks to locate why my system was pretty much non-operational. I worked with tech support for two days and they didn't even identify the problem they just had me return the computer to factory settings where I then had to reload all of my programs...Pain in the butt. bon | |
| Came preinstalled with Sonic RecordNow. Causes XP Pro to crash regularly. Sonic tells you to disable this on startup but doesn't tell you that you'll lose readability See also: Link Kim | |
| It came with CD/DVD write software on my Dell. It hasn't caused me any problems... yet. Ty | |
| If I would close the cover of my laptop (WinXP-Pro), it would hybernate. When I restart, it reports an error because I had disconnected my USB Hard Drive (external) AFTER the hybernation. It is to do with interfacing the drive letter or drives. EJW - Sri Lanka | |
| Can't say for sure that HP created it because I know XP has a lot of built in drivers these days, but it is there to accomodate PCs with installed CDburners. If anyone is having troubles with it , I would reinstall their bundled CDburning software or look for a recent software patch - tho' I found this comment on hp site Early versions of DLA software are not compatible with Windows XP SP2. The DLA software must be updated to a later version to successfully eliminate this error. The link below contains a revision of DLA software tested to work with Windows XP SP2. See also: Link mdwebneck | |
| Come's with IBM Thinkpad, can't open CD tray when activted Julio Mendez | |
| doesn't run always but if, then it gets my pc to freece often Dan | |
| Came with my new Dell, took 90% of performance from my notebook and caused to crash. It has activated only then I put my laptop to standby and wanted to return back. don't know why? disable it on startup or delete Sonic burning as it came with this program shao | |
| Came after I tried to run WIndows Greetings before inserting the disk (which I do have) | |
| cannot get access to an HP Pavilion 700 with XP Pro, had to disable with msconfig after finding this site.... angela | |
| Came with Sonic for me. Hangs XP when coming out of standby. Very annoying! Lino | |
| tfswctrl.exe is an essential process for HP's packet writing software which burns data to CD's using Microsoft Windows explorer. This program is a non-essential system process, but should not be terminated unless suspected to be causing problems. Mediarocker - IT Administrator | |
| tfswctrl.exe will reenable DLA, even if you disabled it. Travis | |
| Not dangerous unless infected by a virus just like any other process could be. However certain conflicts with this process can cause system errors and prevent some programs from performing normally. I removed the IBM DLA software and that solved the problem. Rob Riddle | |
| Can be several Problems .. This is part of a VERITAS program in "HP" "RecordNow". Veritas has since be aquired by Symantec, you may know them as Norton, .. Soooo, I guess that means U R S.O.L.. | |
| It causes problem with XP Pro, difficult to read disk cut using DLA and interfers with reading disks and causing the computer to hang so that nothing works and sometimes when trying different things to un-hang your computer you end up with the blue screen of death. But it does not appear to cause any permanent damage. It is any to uninstall using the software installer wizard. Security rating is more like a pain in the bum. SAH | |
| comes with dell for sonic yonimon | |
| It hungs the writing application during a burning session causing the disc to eventually fail, then hangs the pc... have to reset. Ashampoo terminate process on startup.. seems to work. Bryan | |
| I have had quite a few issues with this program. Turns out, when I installed a non-full version of Nero it started killing my burnt CD's. This burner is the top of the line, double layer DVD's and everything, and even older computer burned everything perfectly. I would lose 2-3 CD's out of 50-60, not that bad. However, when I tried to boot Nero Speed Test, and other programs, and they crashed, I knew something was wrong. I uninstalled Nero and tried Roxio. It wouldn't burn at all now. I killed it in msconfig and everything burns, and no crashes. Very Annoyed, TJRuLeZ | |
| It showed up in the event logs on a user's machine that would not shut down properly Mike | |
| According to Process Explorer the file comes from Sonic Solutions on my Dell 2400. It does the second most I/O hard drive writes. It's second only to Google Desktop Index which I would expect to do a lot of reads and writes. It has to be causing some performance hits. Jerry near St. Louis | |
| came installed in my IBM thinkpad. causes the laptop to crash when resuming after sleep. tom | |
| Began crashing our Dell after trying to install a firewire port. disabling with msconfig allows pc to run as normal liz | |
| I think it is a part of sonic recordnow. Causes Program is Not responding dialog box may times I shut down or restart XP Rakesh Godara | |
| When I try to open office file, windws installer is started. In Task Manager, I link app to proces, and it is tfswctrl.exe. When I try to end process it refuse. Vipera | |
| Part of Sonic/Vertias/Roxio DLA shipped with some HP and Sony drives. If you've got it good luck its a little like having ebola. Neil H Murphy | |
| It allows Sonic CD Burning software | |
| has caused my taskbar to disappear plus other annoyances like programs not starting, network connections removed. I am having to re-image my Toshiba Laptop Himanshu Gupta | |
| prevented installation of a Nero program Ludwixx | |
| It is an essential component for DLA in Sonic, if you run the updates for DLA it will usually fix alot of the issues SnakeJawz | |
| it causes thinkpad running win XP pro, to hang while shutdown or logoff. Ravi Katiyar | |
| I get this file appear on shut down "if" and only "if" there is a DVD/CDROM in the drive. So it acts as a reminder to remove discs from the PC. Steve | |
| Dean Seaman's link give's a version that doesn't work on XP SP Steven | |
| prevents everything from opening. when I go to shut down window pops up that tfswctrl.exe is not responding, when I end now, everything else that I tried to open, opens. irratated | |
| definitely makes my machine hit a blue screen: BAD_POOL_HEADER Jaymus | |
| sonic dla is hung, try replacing the media, may be out of space gerry | |
| This is necessary to make the OS automatically handle drives and removable drives for the user. I have an HP desktop and went to the HP website for their solution (there wasn't any), however, they did have a newer version of the DLA. The installation auto-uninstalled the previous version, then installed the new version. On final reboot the problem was gone! Yahoo! Rascal Ron | |
| causes a bad pool header blue sceen on my computer | |
| Related to Sonic. Can stop it from loading thru click Start click run type= msconfig press enter click startup tab uncheck tfswctrl.exe reboot to affect change do the reverse to enable tfswctrl.exe Quisp | |
| Part of Sonic's Roxio Record Now Direct CD (DVD & CD Burner program); Can be corrupted, can be exploited; Usually stored in System32\dla\ here .exe; Required for certain burning hardware; Required at Startup for CD burning hardware/software; d34th_WiSH | |
| when I try to suspend it, it unsuspends itself! it also will not let me kill it. I removed it from startup in the registry and my machine runs a whole lot faster rey | |
| Along with Norton internet security packages 2009 and 2010, it will cause blue screen of death. when I completely remove all norton software, it works fine, but then I have no internet security. if i need to read/write cd's norton gotta go, otherwise this utility gotta go. combination of two keeps on crashing my windows xp professional. Bob | |
| Causes problem whenever I shut down my hp notebook. In process explorer it is even not possible to 'verify' this junk. That's the kind of stuff I would like to clean off if I didn't have to write a CD once every two years. Lal | |
| Had many problems. Crashes , super slow , programs nonfunction or malfunction , startup/shutdown glitches. I think a virus or trojan messed up tfswctrl.exe. I removed and reinstalled sonic. Seems all fixed. Dharma | |
| says it cannot start, infected by w32/blaster.worm. won't let ANY program stay open jim | |
| Windows Explorer stops working. Can use and open files directly with the associated application but can't see the files existing in the hard drive. Mr. A. | |
| Standard program used by DirectCD. Drive Letter Access Component ( from properties ) version 1.4.8.0 ( Windows XP on a Toshiba Laptop ) Jon | |
Show all 116 comments
More process information
Is tfswctrl.exe spyware or a virus, trojans, adware or worm? Is there a known tfswctrl.exe error?
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