This will be the first of possibly a regular series of posts which I will generically label as a "TechTip". The purpose of these posts will be to simply provide computer & technology related tips, tricks and fixes.
The topic of this inaugural TechTip will be to cover an issue dealing with a certain Microsoft Windows process named "MsMpEng.exe". As far as I could tell from searching Google, many people have experienced problems with this process, and it doesn't look like anyone has been able to provide any definitive or proper answers... some people have gone as far as suggesting to hack the Windows registry in order to disable the process entirely (yikes)!
Slow system performance is arguably the most common problem that any computer user of any level of proficiency will encounter. When dealing with a slow computer, users of intermediate experience are likely to try to investigate the programs and processes currently running on the system in order to attempt to identify the cause(s), and remedy it if possible -- in most cases by simply killing the problematic processes. In modern operating systems, a method to see a list of running processes, CPU, memory usage and other resource usage is usually available. In recent versions of Microsoft Windows, this function would be provided by the "Task Manager", which is most easily accessed by right-clicking an empty area of the taskbar and choosing the "Task Manager" option from the context menu.
MsMpEng.exe is a process that one may sometimes notice using a fair chunk of memory (both physical RAM and virtual memory), as well as occupying a high amount of CPU time. It is a component of Microsoft's Windows Defender Antispyware software, and is responsible for running automatic system scans in the background.
With this in mind, if you find that MsMpEng.exe is pegging your computer's CPU, the most logical explanation is that a background system scan is probably in progress. To verify this, simply launch the Windows Defender application, and you should see that a system scan is currently underway. Obviously, the ideal thing to do is to simply allow the scan to complete in the background while you go about your business. However, if the background scan is using too much CPU time such that it interferes with things you are trying to do, all you need to do is click the Stop scan button to reclaim your CPU. It's as simple as that.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
TechTip: MsMpEng.exe Using High CPU
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2 comments:
Windows Defender (MsMpEng.exe) is a component part of Microsoft Windows OneCare. OneCare is an anti-virus, anti-malware, hard-drive de-fragmenter and home-network-enabled backup application. I purchased it from Microsoft, and use it to manage all my home computers from a central computer. The central computer has an attached large storage device that received scheduled backups automatically from all computers on the network. That said, I experimented with MsMpEng.exe by stopping its process in Windows Task Manager. That action disables the anti-virus and anti-malware capability of OneCare on the computer where MsMpEng.exe is stopped. Your choice: Accept real poor system performance with MsMpEng.exe protecting your computer, or shut it off and experience much better performance (with exposure to viruses and other malware). Microsft is discontinuing OneCare in June of 2009, but I don't know if I can wait that long to get a better anti-virus program, and start doing my home network de-frags and backups myself.
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