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 SpeedUpMyPC to fix related speed issues
3. Run Spyware Doctor to remove 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: 1


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." http://www.neuber.com/taskmanager/process/tfswctrl.exe.html 

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 speed issues.


Users Opinions

Average user rating of tfswctrl.exe: 3.5 based on 107 votes. Read also the 115 reviews.

2930 users ask for this file. 37 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. 18 users didn't rate it ("don't know").


All comments about tfswctrl.exe:
rate1 Part of Sonic Solutions DVD/CD Suite & provides drive letter access to drive   Jon Dyson
rate5 Drive Letter Access (DLA) - do NOT use in Win 2k3 Server  
rate3 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
rate4 tfswctrl.exe causes a Direct Acces Component crash on XP-Pro startup   Don Catterson
rate1 Installed with Sonic Record Now! CD burning software (might be pre-installed on IBM thinkpad)  See also: Link   JM
rate1 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
rate1 Made by Veritas, came pre-installed on my IBM ThinkPad A31, this app frequently crashes when I "un-hibernate" the laptop   Scott
rate1 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
rate3 not much but is a pain when you want to restart or shutdown your computer.   Don Jensen
rate0 When I shutdown W2000 I get a message telling me that this app is 'not responding'   J. Ponte
rate0 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
rate1 This program is NOT-essential, but SHOULD NOT be terminated unless causing severe problems   John Sousa
rate5 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
rate0 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
rate0 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
rate2 I believe this changes the POP3 account to 127.0.0.1 in Outlook Express  
rate5 XoftSpy claimed it was a Trojan by the name of "Trojan/CWS Combo"   Hanshi
rate4 Causes Direct Access Component crash on startup on my IBM ThinkPad   Mike
rate3 It often gives me the error message "Memory could not be written" when I reboot.   Ted Lyngmo
rate1 When logging off, a message states that it did not shutdown correctly.   A. Knutson
rate1 It was installed on my Dell computer which includes Sonic CD writer software   Hotti
rate0 its a sonic mydvd file, dont mind it   Niall Mc
rate2 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
rate3 its on my dell inspiron 600m, can i disable this without giving me problems??   metro
rate1 Pre-installed on new Dells   docrings
rate0 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
rate3 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
rate4 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
rate5 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
rate1 I think Nero installed it. Causes Direct Access Component crash on startup on my IBM ThinkPad. Also causes BSOD at shutdown.   Stevo
rate4 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
rate3 This conflicts with Backup Pro (comes with Rev Drives) and causes a 2-3 minute hang when the system boots (after login).   Stewart
rate4 Causes severe slowdown of computer. Uses up 100% of computer resources on my "new" dell laptop.   Keith
rate0 When logging off, a message appears, have to end process so logging off can continue   Stephanie
rate5 It will make certain dell gen computers not be able to Shutdown properly   Paul
rate4 Causes Windows XP Pro to hang on start and shutdown   Dan
rate1 Paul Collins is right   wayne Meredith
rate5 When I shut down or restart my pc it says the program not responding   justice
rate5 It crashes Windows totaly and i cant get pass it.   Janne
rate4 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
rate3 makes shutting down the computor difficult - a message comes up and says that it is "not responding"   Joanne
rate1 does not shut down properly on my computer quite often   Keith Garner
rate1 Works for the DVD/CR-RW Combo drive   juan
rate1 Allow access to a CD-RW or a DVD-RW like a standard hard disk   ppf
rate1 not dangerous at all...   YoUr AlL cRaZy
rate1 Seems to come on Dells too, dosen't seem to really be a problem to let it run.   Dylan
rate0 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
rate0 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
rate5 it shows an error on startup and i have no taskabar and the graphics are all screwed  
rate0 When something hangs up on the Inspiron9100 or Dell Workstation 220, this is usually found as the problem.   Didrik
rate3 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
rate4 MS-config disable the bastard 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
rate1 Terrible. Burn 2 CDs and it causes intermittent freezing. Only solution is restart comp. I'm using WinXP   Eric D
rate3 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
rate4 does not terminiate at shutdown IBM computer   mkozlowski
rate2 HP.com has an update, they say early ver. don't work w/ SP-2  See also: Link   Dan Seaman
rate3 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
rate0 HP Printers occasionally install this service   ZeboBeeznurd
rate3 Don't know nothing except get a pop up window on starting my computer about this file   Trying to get rid of this
rate0 Linked to some software not functioning properly on my XP.   Ben
rate1 Crashes Direct access component on startup on my thinkpad T41p   Arni
rate3 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
rate4 Causes my dell dimension 3100 with xp pro sp2 to not be able to shutdown properly. and mouse click function disabled.   mike zahra
rate4 Used for Veritas removable backup to disk\Can Hang!   Paul...
rate0 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
rate3 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
rate2 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
rate3 Causes Program is Not rsponding dialog box ech time I Shut down or restart XP   tictac
rate1 Doesn't shut down for me, either. The question is: other than uninstalling it, how can we get it to behave?   Dave Menconi
rate5 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
rate3 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
rate1 It came with CD/DVD write software on my Dell. It hasn't caused me any problems... yet.   Ty
rate1 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
rate2 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
rate1 Come's with IBM Thinkpad, can't open CD tray when activted   Julio Mendez
rate4 doesn't run always but if, then it gets my pc to freece often   Dan
rate1 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
rate1 Came after I tried to run WIndows Greetings before inserting the disk (which I do have)  
rate5 cannot get access to an HP Pavilion 700 with XP Pro, had to disable with msconfig after finding this site....   angela
rate3 Came with Sonic for me. Hangs XP when coming out of standby. Very annoying!   Lino
rate1 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
rate4 tfswctrl.exe will reenable DLA, even if you disabled it.   Travis
rate3 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
rate3 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..  
rate3 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
rate1 comes with dell for sonic   yonimon
rate2 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
rate5 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
rate3 It showed up in the event logs on a user's machine that would not shut down properly   Mike
rate3 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
rate4 came installed in my IBM thinkpad. causes the laptop to crash when resuming after sleep.   tom
rate5 Began crashing our Dell after trying to install a firewire port. disabling with msconfig allows pc to run as normal   liz
rate0 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
rate0 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
rate4 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
rate0 It allows Sonic CD Burning software  
rate5 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
rate3 prevented installation of a Nero program   Ludwixx
rate1 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
rate2 it causes thinkpad running win XP pro, to hang while shutdown or logoff.   Ravi Katiyar
rate1 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
rate0 Dean Seaman's link give's a version that doesn't work on XP SP   Steven
rate0 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
rate5 definitely makes my machine hit a blue screen: BAD_POOL_HEADER   Jaymus
rate1 sonic dla is hung, try replacing the media, may be out of space   gerry
rate1 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
rate3 causes a bad pool header blue sceen on my computer  
rate1 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
rate3 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
rate5 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
rate1 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
rate4 Causes problem whenever I shut down my hp notebook. In process explorer it is even not possible to 'verify' this shit. 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
rate4 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
rate4 says it cannot start, infected by w32/blaster.worm. won't let ANY program stay open   jim
rate4 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.

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