ASP.NET External State Files – ASPNET_STATE.EXE

ASPNET_STATE.EXE is an external session state file used by Web Developers. It is described as follows: "One of the many features that makes ASP.NET better than ASP is the way it manages session state. By default, ASP.NET session state is stored in the same process as ASP.NET applications. But a simple configuration change lets you move session state to an external "state server" process that will survive IIS restarts. You can even run the state server on a separate machine, in which case session state will survive even if the machine hosting the ASP.NET application goes down completely. If an application uses an external session state, that will be stored in ASPNET_STATE.EXE."

More information on ASP.NET state management can be found via MSDN http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html/cpconperformancecountersforaspnet.asp.

If you're a web developer, if you're running a web server, if you work with active server pages, or if you're running a program or process with an external state, leave this file in place. If you're quite sure that you're not doing any of these things, you can try removing it using WinPatrol. If something stops working, re-enable it.

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Microsoft