Windows Vista forum: What's with all the activity on my PC, when I'm not doing anything?

Perhaps your filesare being indexed to speed up explorer search.
"The new indexing service built into Windows Vista has been the subject of a lot of complaints, since it seems to kick in at strange times and thrash your hard drive. So what can we do to speed this up?
There's two options: You can either trim down the amount of files that Windows Search is indexing, or you can disable it entirely if you never use the search..."
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46 is not excessive; as far as I remember, it would be standard for XP, let alone later OS.
If you really want to prune it, I would suggest installing WinPatrol. The free version works fine, but if you cough up a bit, not only will you support a good guy but also get more detailed info on processes. I run it on every computer I put my hands on.

That is what I do with my WinXP. However, I recently came across a tech blog on PCWorld that says defrag is BAD for SSD drives! And another 'tech blog'(?) somewhere else which states that Registry Fixers only scramble your Registry and should never(!) be used.

That said, I use CCleaner for registry fix also (last 2 years at least) and no problems. I also use Diskeeper Pro on auto run - a hangover from my DOS days.

Also, be very careful what programs run - both on start-up and otherwise. It's difficult to know sometimes but you can generally web-search for details / info. Example: I installed iTunes - it installs some 6 different programs altogether and insists all of them are 'essential' for iTunes to run. So at least turn off the 'run on startup'.

So, while a lot of the answers / suggestions here are good, please take care which ones you use since, depending on hardware / software config, they may not be appropriate for you.

Hi, again,
One of the things that I thought about that may aliviate the situation somewhat is that I mention that all the History for all the system Schedule Task is turn on in Vista.

They basically a detail collection of the System Tasks and what errors or not they encounter. You don't need that information unless you are using it for the purpose of debuging as I did when working with Vista and moved on to Beta and Release Candidate of Windows 7. It help me in reporting issues to Microsoft.

But, in the end, even Microsoft turn them all off in Windows 7 - and I would suggest you turn them all off in Vista as well.
Unfortunately there is no way to disable History accumulation per System Task, instead is all or nothing.
That information is being process to a location for Microsoft Reporting System Error Services.
Here is how you turn them off:

Type Task Scheduler in the Start Menu, when it appear in the list, click it.
When the Task Scheduler opens, the title - Task Scheduler Local --- Appears.
Expand the Tree by double clicking it until you see the Tree named - Windows and make sure you select it by clicking it 1 time.
The Scheduler is divided in 3 panes - Left=Tree / Center=System Task / Right=Tools for different Actions.
Once you have selected Windows - go to the right pane and select - Disable all Task History.

Now some applications tend to create their own Schedule Task but they ARE NOT part of the Windows Tree, you will most likely find them under the heading = Task Schedule Library on the right pane which is right above the heading Windows.
Look at the History Selection of those as well, if it's ON - Then turn it off.

Two other things that came to mind, considering what I have posted before, I am trying to look for things that could have been corrupted and causing execive drive activity.

On the Start menu type - Troubleshooting / Click to launch from the list - As you can see you can troubleshoot many items from this Windows.
Select - System and Security
Right Click on Search and Indexing and select Run as Administrator
The next windows that opens has a lable in blue at the bottom named Advance - If you click on it, a box is already selected indicating to Apply repairs Automatically - You can leave it as is or un-check it - becuse if it found any errors at the end, it will prompt you for what you want to do.

Next -
You may already have Ccleaner, if not you can download it from Cnet/Download - The most recent version added cleaning up the Windows Index, but it cleans it completely, causing the OS, to rebuilt it. Specially if you have Ccleaner set to Start Up with Windows. You can find that setting under the Options / Settings of Ccleaner.

If you don't have it download it to clean junk from your computer - When you open the application, there are 2 tabs on the first screen named - Windows and Applications - you toggle between them.
Select Applications.
Go to the very bottom and you will see the choice MS Search - it should be checked marked. Run Ccleaner once to clean the Search history but when it finishes, UN-CHECK that box - or Windows will constantantly be trying to re-build the Indexing.

Finally, you could have Ccleaner - clean the Index once. but the other choice would be for you to do it yourself in case no error is found using the Troubleshooting steps above.

Type Index on the Start menu - Select and click Indexing Options - Click one time on USERS - Select Advance and on the next windows click Rebuild.

Give it about 1/2 hour without using your computer and making sure it does not go to sleep.

I am not saying these WILL COMPLETELY STOP, the Hard drive trashing for other reasons I mention before- BUT IT MAY CORRECT some associated problem. And as you can see I am giving you instructions on typing search terms that bring up results very quickly - and why it may not be such a good idea to turn it off.

Well i hope the situation gets a little better.
Geo

Good round up. But I can't understand why on earth a person who has been a beta tester for Win 7 (and presumably interacted with the community) can't get basic spelling correct for technical terms at least. For instance, it should be Disk Thrashing and not Disk Trashing. Note that I am not talking about general English. But technical terms that may for instance be searched for.

OK

I can see that "trashing the hard drive" is alarming at first sight. However, it is not nice to criticize someone's language, especially since may posters on this forum may not have English as their first language.

Incidentally, the term "thrashing" is an old one, going back to the origins of virtual memory systems. It refers to threshing - the process of separating wheat from chaff by thrashing the harvested wheat plants around and around until the wheat kernels drop off. On the old big disk drives it was quite exciting and noisy when the virtual memory got full and worked wildly just to move a few thousand bytes around.

I think you'll find the correct term is "thrashing", meaning (to quote from Wikipedia) "thrashing is a situation where large amounts of computer resources are used to do a minimal amount of work, with the system in a continual state of resource contention".

I just signed up w/charter, I wonder if they do that...?

All Windows computers have lots going on in the background - from program updates to virus scanning to housekeeping. A typical CPU has 75 processes active at any one time. You can see these if you open the task manager (Run->taskman.exe) but, to get more information, install the free Avir Task Manger available on CNET's download.com. It shows not only the startup items found in msconfig.exe, but current active applications, processes, and system services. You can see how much of the CPU is used (in real time), how much hard disk loading is being used, and a wealth of information about the related program and company, what files are being used, does it access the internet.....and much more. The professional version gets fancier, but the free version should answer the question easily. Yes, all the antivirus and antimalware scans are good, but there are lots of processes that are valid - and you can narrow down what is causing the excess disk activity very quickly.

It sounds like you are have spyware on your computer which is sending in information to a server about everything on your computer. There will be times when you are on the internet and notice that everything is slowed down like pages loading or videos playing when it normally runs perfect. That is because your internet connection is being used by background spyware. You need to get software which will find and delete these trojans.

True, setting your antivirus to only load after system services will reduce boot time but that means you have no protection against viruses while the system services run. What if those files happened to be infected? Unlikely but possible.

True, unchecking enable rootkit scan upon system startup will make startup faster. But what if you have a rootkit? Unchecking this will allow the rootkit to install and entrench before your antivirus enters the picture. Unlikely but possible.

Bottom line you run your antivirus for a reason, to be safe. You do it because in today's computing world it is not a question of if you will get attacked it is a question of when. Those extra few seconds of startup time will be time well spent if it avoids just one infection.

That email address.

Since these are "Public Forums" spammers have no problems setting their forum bots to work trawling through posts for unprotected email addresses.

They get a lot of success with their bots, and send out a lot of spam emails.

Your choice. If you feel the risk is too great, use the "Report this post" triangle at the bottom right of your post to request that the email address is edited out.

Mark

Hi Alan,

I can't add much to what's already been said except to suggest that you look at the posts by Ebbtides and Geo2003. Excellent advice and analysis respectively by both. The only suggestion I have would be to ditch the "free" Avast and go with a paid version if your concern is some type of infection. Protection software is free for a reason...or simply put..."You Get What You Pay For or Not If It's Free". Don't get me wrong...no protection/removal software is 100%....Paid or Free. But I'd rather take my chances with a paid version. PCWorld did a piece on Free vs. Paid protection software performance in November of 2010. Here's the link to review their findings in the "protection" category:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/210589/free_vs_fee_free_and_paid_antivirus_programs_compared.html

In hindsight I do have a couple of suggestions and I'll probably get a lot of backlash for saying this one....A Defrag of your HD may be in order if you've never done it or don't have Auto-Defrag turned on in Vista.

The other suggestion is this...Go to:

Programs>Accessories>SystemTools>DiskCleanUp
Select your C drive and click OK

After the program runs (and this may take some time if you've never run it before) you'll have options to delete files in the following categories to free up space and eliminate further indexing of the same information over and over.... (FYI, I freed up 6.13 GB the last time I ran the program)

Downloaded Programs Files
Temp Internet Files
Offline webpages
Recycle Bin
Setup Logs
System error memory dump files
Temp Files
Thumbnails
Per User archived Windows Error Reports
System archived Windows Error Reports

The only files that I would not remove would be "Setup Log Files". The others can be removed without worry. However, before you check the boxes beside each option you can highlight the area with your cursor and an explanation will appear in the "Description" box. Then make your decision.

One last cleanup option (but it must b done very carefully) is to remove old system restore points. If you are not sure how to safely remove them...then I would suggest you get professional help. Therefore, I'll not leave any instructions in this post.


Good luck to resolve your issues.

I haven't had time to read all replies but consider these ideas:
Download a 30 day trial version of a security package something like Trend Micro Titanium Security. It will give you 30 days of updates to the virus pattern files and fully functioning protection. Uninstall your current AV software, like most things pay nothing, you get nothing or worse.

If you have installed Windows Search 4.0, uninstall it if you can if it won't affect other software that you use. I have found this program to be an abomination that doesn't seem to do much exept grind your computer to a near complete halt!

If you are running software that either shares media or refers to the Internet frequently for updating information, disable the updating function or at least set it to a less frequent schedule.

Do some research and find out what services can be disabled in Vista and then go into the Services section and set those services to "Disable". Be careful, disabling the wrong services could have serious consequences.

Make sure that the Defragmentation schedule is scheduled for a time when you are less likely to be using your PC.

Set a scanning schedule for a daily system scan by your chosen security software. This should be again at a time when you are most likely not going to be using your PC. Ensure that the virus signature files are updated frequently, Trend Micro products can be set to update hourly.

So, hope this helps.

PS
Only ever run ONE security solution, two or more can interfere with each other.

There are some very good responses from some very smart people in this thread. Unfortunately everyone I know has had this situation at some time or another and any one of the quoted responses could be correct. The sheer number of different causes that have been suggested is the actual problem - Windows is so complex with so many resource hungry processes running below decks, that most users are never actually in charge of their machine. The best (and cheapest) way to get out of this situation is simply to dump Windows and install a Linux desktop. This will ensure that your virus/trojan intruder risk is immediately reduced by about 99% and that updates and patches are always done on your terms and NOT the vendors. These days there is so much Linux software that is mainstream compatible (e.g. office suites that read and write in MS Office format,) that no-one needs Windows at all. We haven't used Windows in our home since I took early retirement a year ago. Following is the list of top 10 Linux Distros and any one of them would get users back in the drivers' seat and they are all very easy to learn. (If you can fathom the logic behind Windows then you can fathom anything - even a Mac!) My recommendation is Linux Mint (Debian Edition,) as everything works "out of the box" with very little user input required. Also, if you you feel that you simply can't make a clean break from Windows, then most Linux "live" install distributions some with a dual boot option so that you can gradually be weaned off Mother Windows.

Ubuntu
Mint
Fedora
<div>Debian
</div>openSuse
Arch
PCLinuxOS
CentOS
Puppy
Mandriva