What programs use the webcam. How to find a program that uses a webcam? How to find an application that uses a webcam

Good afternoon, dear readers, not long ago we installed skype for windows 10, and after some time it may give you this error when calling " Can't start video broadcast. Close all other programs that can use the webcam,” and as a result they won’t see you. It would be unlucky for someone if at the most crucial moment you receive such a scam from Microsoft, before the purchase of Skype by the Redmond giant, I have not seen such problems .

And this is the situation I have good camera Microsoft, I use it both as a camera and as a microphone that is built into it. One fine day I wanted to call my wife and chat, when I reached her I got an error

Can't start video streaming. Close all other programs that may be using the webcam

On the other side I was not seen or heard; this was the first time I had seen such a mistake. Let's see how I defeated her.

First of all, try calling your interlocutor back, it didn’t help me. I then completely closed Skype and restarted it, the error cannot start video broadcasting did not go away. Next, Microsoft advises updating Skype. This is done simply by opening the Help menu at the top and selecting Check for updates. Skype will make a request to Microsoft servers and check if there are newer versions, if so, it will download and install them.

If this does not help you, then try to find out if there are any other programs that could intercept your use of the webcam and need to be closed. Among them may be

• Mail agent
• IP telephony programs like 3cx phone

If there are no such programs, then check the physical connection of the web camera, try connecting it to another usb port. If this doesn’t help, try restarting your computer; another option is to try updating your Windows drivers.

Another very common problem is personal computers, so this is when on your motherboard there are many USB ports, I have highlighted individual blocks with a red oval, the joke here is that if you plug a mouse into one of the ports of such a pool, and then want to plug a camera next to it, it will not work, tested on the Microsoft lifecam.

It usually starts like this: you want to make a video call or receive an incoming one. But it was not there: Skype says that the camera is occupied by another application. Of course, the interlocutor cannot see anything, only the voice from the microphone is heard.

Causes of the problem

This may cause paranoid thoughts. After all, if the webcam is occupied by another application, and Skype has nothing to do with it, then perhaps they are spying on you right now?

Exhale and relax. This is a fairly common system problem in Windows, which can be dealt with using available methods. It is not necessary to put duct tape on the camera or put foil on your head.

A variety of applications can be caught in the bad habit of intercepting the camera: antiviruses, graphics packages, game streaming services. It could also be an incorrect system configuration. Let's try to figure out how to appease uninvited video call applicants.

Elimination

There are several options for how to block the camera for use on Skype:

• If you use Kaspersky Antivirus, then you may have to accept its “what is not allowed is prohibited” logic. Open its window, select the section in the menu "Confidentiality", there is a tab in it "Camera" and allow Skype to use it. This should solve everything.
• If your camera is not built-in, but is connected via a USB connector, try reconnecting it physically.
• Try booting Windows in "clean" mode. After that, launch the applications one after another and try video calling on Skype after launching each of them. It's quite troublesome. But if the problem persists for you, this is the only way solve it completely.

There is no Kaspersky on your computer, and there is no one to blame? Then reset all settings using system methods. Everything is done like this:

Reinstall the video camera driver completely. For this:

Hello everyone! In today's article we will talk about the security of Webcams. We have already talked in detail about all the methods. If you haven't read it yet, I encourage you to read it.

Today, as a follow-up to that article, I decided to write about how to find out which program uses the Webcam. This may be useful in some cases. And not only in situations related to viruses and malware, but also in case of device conflicts in the operating system. For example, quite often such conflicts occur when using Skype programs.

In Windows 10, you control how apps use your webcam using a native feature. It is located in the “Settings” -> “Privacy” -> “Camera” section.

This is a pretty useful thing for controlling application access to the webcam. If you use Windows 10, then in terms of security, I highly recommend disabling everything unnecessary that can use the webcam.

If you are not using the webcam at all, then move the “Allow applications to use...” slider to the off position. If you intend to use the webcam with certain applications, then you should disable only unnecessary applications.

All this is of course good. But there is one thing... You understand that not a single normal malicious one will be visible on this list. Such programs are good at camouflaging themselves and hiding their presence in the system.

What to do in such a situation? How to determine which program is using the Webcam?

Very simple. We will search for a webcam in running processes by the physical name of the device using a small and free program Process Explorer from Microsoft. This utility will greatly simplify and speed up the search for a device. The presented method works on operating systems Windows 10, 8, 8.1, 7.

So friends, let's move on to the instructions themselves.

What program uses the Webcam

Let's launch Device Manager. To do this, use the Win + R key combination to open the “Run” window.

In which you need to enter the command “devmgmt.msc” and click “Ok”.

After that, in the “Task Manager” window that appears, in the “Image processing devices” drop-down menu, we will find the webcam. If you have several webcams installed on your system, follow these steps for all of them.

Double clicking on the device will open the settings window. By default, the General tab will open, but we want the Details tab.

On the “Information” tab, in the “Properties” drop-down menu, find the item “Physical object name...”. And in the “Value” field, right-click and copy its name.

Now you need to download a small free application Process Explorer. By the way, very useful program. It may be useful to you in different situations. I recommend mastering it. In many of our instructions we will use it or other similar programs that replace the standard Windows task manager.

After installation, run the program and use the Ctrl+F key combination to open the search, in which we will paste the device name copied to the clipboard. Click on the search button and wait for the process to complete.

If after the end of the search no results are found, then this can only indicate that the webcam is not being used by any application at that particular moment.

But there may be a different picture. As you can see from the screen above, in my case the webcam is busy Google browser Chrome.

What could this mean?

The first is that one of the open sites uses this moment webcam. Typically, to enable the user's Webcam, the site requests permission using the browser. As a rule, such a window appears on all sorts of online video chats, but this is if the site is white and clean.

If it is a fraudulent site or simply a hacked one to which exploits were uploaded, there will be no window. An attacker will be able to launch your webcam without your confirmation. In this case, try closing all browser tabs and repeating the search.

In more severe cases, this may also indicate that something was injected into the Google Chrome process. Yes, this often happens. In this case, you should reinstall the browser and continue searching for the Trojan on your computer.

How to find malware on the computer, I promise to tell you in the next article, so if you don’t want to miss it, you can subscribe to us on social networks.

That seems to be all. Now you know how to find out which application is using the webcam. By the way, this way you can determine the use of other devices on your computer.

When you try to make a video meeting on Skype, you may see information that our webcam is being used by another program. Immediately there are concerns that someone from the viewer or some kind of virus is transmitting our image from the camera to the network. How can I check which program running on my computer is using the camera?

You are sitting in front of your laptop, and suddenly the webcam LED lights up, although all Skype programs are disabled. However, the LED clearly indicates that the camera is working and some application is using it. This does not necessarily mean that we have a virus and someone is watching us (although it could be), however it is problematic because when the application uses the camera, we will not be able to use it for Skype, for example.

We check which application is using our webcam

We can check which process is running in background, uses the camera using the program Process Explorer. However, before we begin, check what our camera ID is in the system. To do this, go to the Control Panel and navigate to Hardware and Sound > Device Manager.

We are looking for our webcam in the list of devices connected to the computer. It is usually found under the Display Devices tab. Sometimes it may also be under the "Sound, Video and Game Controllers" section.

We place our webcam in the list, then right-click and select Properties. In the new window, go to the “Details” tab.

In the Property field, select Physical Object Name. The value will be displayed below it, that is, the identifier of our device. Right-click and select Copy.

Once we have copied the device ID, the next step is to launch the Process Explorer tool. This is such an extensive task manager that allows you to view a list of running applications(processes), as well as receive detailed information about them (for example, what devices they use).

After copying our device ID, we'll go straight to the Find tab in the top menu and select Find a handle or DLL.

In the new window, paste the ID we copied and click Search. Process Explorer will now search for all processes and display those that use devices with a given ID, that is, our webcam.

In my case for testing, it's just the Skype.exe process, which is the Skype communicator. However, if you see another program, you can simply find it in the list in Process Explorer, then right-click and select "Kill Process". This will force the program to close using our camera.

A very large number of users around the world use a device such as a webcam. They do this to connect with friends, colleagues or family. For these purposes they use various software, for example, Skype, or a regular browser.

If you are concerned that someone may be spying on you at the moment, or in your absence, then you can. Of course, a webcam is really a device through which anyone can learn about your type of activity or secrets. Therefore you need to be extremely careful. Even, as you might think, a turned off camera poses a threat.

For example, you don’t want to turn off your webcam, what should you do then? You can find out which application is in currently uses it. We will need an application from Micrososft, which shows active processes in the system. This tool is more advanced than the task manager and has many interesting features.

How to find an application that uses a webcam?

First you need to find the webcam device name. This information can be found in Device Manager.

To open Device Manager on Windows 10 or earlier, right-click on the Start menu, or press the Win + X combination and select the “Device Manager” section there. In Windows 7, you need to use the Win+R combination and enter the command devmgmt.msc .

In the list of devices, find the one that is responsible for the webcam. I have this tab "Image Processing Devices" and there is my laptop's "HP Truevision HD" webcam. Double click on it.

Go to the section "Intelligence" and select from the drop-down menu "Physical Device Object Name". In the “Value” window, copy the resulting result. Just right-click on this line and select “Copy”.

Launch the downloaded Process Explorer utility and click on the tab "Find". Click on the “Find Handle or DLL” item, or simply press the “Ctrl+F” keys. Paste the value we copied into the search bar and press the button "Search". We wait.

Process Explorer will look for those processes that are using webcam hardware.

Only processes that are currently using the webcam will be shown. If there is a running process but not using the camera, or a disabled program, you will not see anything in the results.

Let's say you discovered several processes using a webcam. Then you need to look at the detailed information about it. Double-click on the process and go to the tab "Image". If the found process is unknown to you, you can look up information about it on the Internet.

Do you suspect that the found process may be malicious? Then right-click on it and select "Kill Process", or click the button "Del". This will complete the process.

Of course, stopping a process using this method will not help if the process is infected. The next time you start your computer, it will start again. Therefore, you need to check your computer for viruses with all kinds of programs.