Dude, in your screenshot, you show only two things using CPU resources - taskmgr and explorer. Explorer is only 2%. That doesn't explain the 5-8% usage you say is happening constantly. Maybe it is explorer using the 5-8%. We don't know from the info you have provided us. I'd like to help, but I can't without more information. "Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion! Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution! The ripple effect is too good not to mention. If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"

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In Task Manager goto select columns under View and turn on I/O Read Bytes and I/O Write Bytes and watch those columns. This way you can see which process is making the hard disk chug along.

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i don't have access to the machine at the moment as i'm at home now ... at long last :-) however, i've been setting up a comparable Vista installation on a virtual machine with pretty the same findings. first, when viewing the processes, the cpu usage is significantly higher as with the performance view (17% taskmgr, 2% explorer) for our convenience i made a screen shot with both (XP and Vista) task manager side by side: http://img464.imageshack.us/img464/... as you can see, the XP machine appears to be absolutely idle, no CPU consumption through taskmgr OR explorer (VirtualBox.exe doesn't count here :-). now, the taskmanager is usually turned off and is not an issue ... but why is explorer constantly showing activities? FYI: the host system is Windows XP Pro on a P4 HT 3.06GHz w. 1280 MB RAM. first i tried Vista in VPC 2007 and it was dreadful (installation time 50 minutes), takes about 6 minutes to boot and is extremely sluggish. Then i installed it in VirtualBox (less than 20 minutes) and it is running surprisingly smooth, boots in less than 1 minute. Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

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Here would be my best guesses: I'd disable Windows Defender. Start -> Programs -> Windows Defender -> Tools -> Options -> Disable everything, and then stop the service under services.msc Disable Indexing... Open Computer, and right click on each drive. In the General pane, uncheck "Index this drive for faster searching". Click Apply. Select Apply changes to drive X:\, subfolders and files. Click OK for anything that pops up, and ignore all for any error messages. Sounds like you disabled indexing already, but I just want to make sure. "Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion! Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution! The ripple effect is too good not to mention. If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"

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defender is not even installed and indexing is disabled altogether (i still have a pretty good memory and know where my files are, so i decided to take this burden off windows :-) see, i'm just fiddling around with Vista out of occupational curiousity, so i don't really care about such 'minor' glitches ... it just puzzles me why explorer has got to do something all the time and if this can be solved by using a 3rd party windows shell. but i doubt that there are any available as of yet. Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

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Remember Windows Defender is installed by default in Vista, unlike XP. Did you remove it yourself? "Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion! Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution! The ripple effect is too good not to mention. If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"

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Customizing the installation, i chose not to install the defender. i'm not overly scared of infections of any kind as this baby will never see the light of day, err, any internet connection ... remember, this is all experimental/academic here and not a 'real world computer problem' :-) Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

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Not criticizing the decision to not install it. I trust you understand the pros and cons of removing Windows Defender. I just was making sure you didn't actually have it installed. "Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion! Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution! The ripple effect is too good not to mention. If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"

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i appreciate that ... this was just a Q&D job anyway, cuz i was in a bit of a hurry. the explorer issue is just something i have seen on any vista machine i came across so far and i wanted to have a closer look at it. and no, i'm not blaming it on NSA backdoors or DRM either :-) Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

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Set up a performace meter log and see what is going on. Perfmon should finally work on vista. I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you goober.

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good point, jefro ... have been there but 'forgot' to expand the cpu section :-) Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

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"the performance meter in the task manager reports a constant 5-8% CPU consumption" Something is amiss here! In task manager, what is shown (at the bottom) under "CPU Usage" as well as "Processes" & Physical Memory" within the performance tab should be concomitant with what is reflected all through all the other tabs within task manager. In other words, I don't believe your task manager that seems to be eating up 17-18% in at least two separate "Processes" instances that you posted is unacounted under the "Performance" tab where you had 6% CPU Usage - evidently some of your numbers are off. And unless you have another proof besides the performance meter in the task manager, I remain skeptical of the "constant 5-8% CPU consumption" because you can not on the one hand claim that as an empirical observation, while on the other hand you have the same task manager running. Maybe you ought to clarify that part, but I guess that won't be happening because that right there should by all means account for the CPU usage discrepancy. How To Ask Questions The Smart Way

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taskmgr doesn't really make for empirical monitoring as there is a discrepancy in the cpu consumption between performance and process view (thanks to jefro who pointed me to perfmon). i will setup performance logging on a 'real' PC later on, and leave it running idle for a couple of hours or so (something i wouldn't do 'en passant' on a virtual machine). Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

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Mattie, In one of the pictures you supplied, total physical memory appears to be 511 MB, whereas you say that you have 6 GB of RAM. How come ? I am not at my Vista desktop. So I will check if mine shows the total RAM there. Regards suatcini

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Dear Mattie, I checked my Vista installation. Mine shows Total 2046 MB under Memory in Task Manager. Yours shows Total 511 MB. See your Task Manager picture below: http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/... Therefore, there appears to be something wrong in your system because you say you have 6 GB of memory. I have 2 GB of RAM which is shown correctly. Regards suatcini

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sry ... but the machine in question is a simple office workstation with just 512 MB of RAM so the memory count is quite accurate :-) then i have been using the same setup in a virtual machine, assigning only 512 MB again to have a comparison when i didn't have access to this computer. it's showing pretty much the same behaviour. Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

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512M sucks for Vista, VM or physical. TECH-NO-LOGICAL ROMANCE! http://www.homestarrunner.com/tgs12.html

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Vista sucks, VM or physical :-) Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

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That's why most of the world will be running it in a few years. Don't slam stuff you don't know how to use. :-P "Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion! Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution! The ripple effect is too good not to mention. If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"

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sure THIS guy know how to use it best :-) http://youtube.com/watch?v=FVbf9tOGwno Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

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