What are Sedsvc.exe, Sedlauncher.exe Files and REMPL Folder in Windows 10?
SUMMARY: Sedsvc.exe, Sedlauncher.exe, Rempl.exe, Remsh.exe and WaaSMedic.exe files present in REMPL folder in your Windows 10 computer are not a virus or malware. These files are copied by a reliability update KB4023057 for Windows 10 to improve Windows Update Service components in your machine.
Yesterday night I was working on one of my Windows 10 machines and suddenly I received a notification from my firewall software that following 2 executables were trying to access/connect to Internet:
- sedsvc.exe
- sedlauncher.exe
I immediately blocked both executables from connecting to Internet. Both sedsvc.exe and sedlauncher.exe files were having digital signature of Microsoft Windows.
I checked with Task Manager (press Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and found sedsvc.exe executable running in background. Task Manager was showing its name as Windows Remediation Service.
I right-clicked on the EXE file and selected “Open file location” option to open the folder containing this file. Windows opened following folder in File Explorer:
C:Program Filesrempl
The REMPL folder contains following files and folders in my Windows 10 computer:
- Logs
- CTAC.json
- disktoast.exe
- osrrb.exe
- rempl.xml
- sedlauncher.exe
- sedplugins.dll
- sedsvc.exe
- ServiceStackHardening.Inf
- strgsnsaddons.dll
- toastlogo.png
When Windows opened REMPL folder, I immediately got the idea that the sedsvc.exe and sedlauncher.exe files are definitely related to downloading and installing the new feature update released for Windows 10. Because the same REMPL folder has been used by other files called Rempl.exe, Remsh.exe and WaaSMedic.exe in past for the same purpose.
After some investigation I found that the update KB4023057 (and sometimes KB4295110) for Windows 10 installed these sedsvc.exe and sedlauncher.exe files in REMPL folder.
According to the official description of this update:
This update includes reliability improvements to Windows Update Service components in Windows 10, versions 1507, 1511, 1607, 1703, 1709, and 1803. It may also take steps to free up disk space on your device if you do not have enough disk space to install Windows updates.
This update includes files and resources that address issues that affect the update processes in Windows 10 that may prevent important Windows updates from being installed. These improvements help make sure that updates are installed seamlessly on your device, and they help improve the reliability and security of devices that are running Windows 10.
There are more details available on what this update can do in your Windows 10 device:
- This update may request your device to stay awake longer to enable installation of updates. Please note the installation will respect any user-configured sleep configurations and also your “active hours” when you use your device the most.
- This update may try to reset network settings if problems are detected, and it will clean up registry keys that may be preventing updates from being installed successfully.
- This update may repair disabled or corrupted Windows operating system components that determine the applicability of updates to your version of Windows 10.
- This update may compress files in your user profile directory to help free up enough disk space to install important updates.
- This update may reset the Windows Update database to repair the problems that could prevent updates from installing successfully. Therefore, you may see that your Windows Update history was cleared.
Microsoft has also mentioned what this update can do to free up disk space on your computer to install feature updates:
When a Windows feature update is available for your device, you may see a message on the Windows Update settings page or elsewhere that asks you to free up disk space by removing files or applications that you do not use regularly. If you see this message, select “Fix issues” to free up disk space on your device. To help free up disk space, this update may also compress files in your user profile directory so that Windows Update can install important updates. After you install the update, your files are restored to their original state.
So basically these files and folders are used by Windows 10 update to make sure future updates and feature updates are installed without any issues in your Windows 10 PC.