What is “Andrea ST Filters Service”?
What is “Andrea ST Filters Service”(AESTFilters)?
Many people wonder what is “Andrea ST Filters” windows service when going through the list of processes that were running on their machine. I was one of them as I was trying to find out what is causing it to run so slowly and one of the processes that was on the top was the ‘Andrea ST Filters’. It wasn’t using many resources it just a process I’ve never seen before and the list was sorted alphabetically so I noticed it. It turns out that if you happen to have an HP machine odds are you’ll see that process. It is nothing to be alarmed of, it actually is a legit service that is used by the Sigmatel Audio software. Sigmatel uses the Andrea ST Filters service mostly for noise cancellation (for your microphone of course). So I’m relieved to find out it’s not some unnecessary service or malware. My guess is that ST stands for Sound Transformation (or for SigmaTel?) but I haven’t looked that up yet. Many people would be alarmed not only as Andrea ST Filters shows up on their task manager, but also you can see it when you launch msconfig.exe.
Is it safe?
Yes, as mentioned above it is a service that comes preinstalled with computers that use the Sigmatel Audio Software for your microphone, etc. Hewlett Packard (or Compaq) has used this provider in the past with their machines.
Can I remove it?
Sure, in theory the worst that could happen would be that the noise filtering in your microphone would not work. Some people are picky as to what runs on their machines and if they hardly ever use the microphone there is no harm on removing this service. You can use msconfig.exe to disable its automatic launch. Personally I would leave it there in my experience it hardly uses any resources.
What is a good practice regarding checking up on windows services?
It is always a good practice to take a look around the processes that are running on your machine. Sometimes these processes can be viruses, malware, or simply things you don’t really need but are using your computer resources. I only do those checks when my computer is running slowly and I try to tackle the ones that are using the most memory, processor capacity or accessing the hard drive the most. Like they say, 20% of your processes will be using 80% or your resources, so focus on those!
You can safely stop this service if you don’t use the microphone much/at all. Getting rid of this service helps your computer run faster, as alot of these khuntish programs chew up RAM/CPU time.
You’re right a lot of these programs do chew up resources pretty fast… but by itself is not a big deal. I wish vendors would set it up so they are launched when you need them not running all the time.