I was doing some cleanup on my server and ran across the ctfmon.exe process.  I’ve investigated this process before and at that time there didn’t seem to be definitive information available on it.  At one point there was even a virus that was being installed on people’s machines posing as ctfmon.exe.

When I searched today, I found a lot of great info on it.  From Microsoft’s web site:

What Is the Ctfmon.exe (Ctfmon.exe) File?

Ctfmon.exe activates the Alternative User Input Text Input Processor (TIP) and the Microsoft Office Language Bar.

What Does the Ctfmon.exe File Do?

Ctfmon.exe monitors the active windows and provides text input service support for speech recognition, handwriting recognition, keyboard, translation, and other alternative user input technologies.

Well clearly I don’t need to be running that on a server.  The page referenced above says that it applies to Office 2002 (aka Office XP), so I rooted around for information that would apply to a more recent version and found this one:

The instructions on that page are virtually identical as on the Microsoft page, but it specifically refers to Office 2003 (the version I had installed) and refers to Windows XP and Windows Vista.  It also has screen images which make it much easier to follow.  Microsoft could sure learn a thing or two about providing this kind of information from sites like this.