Last time I looked, NAV had something like 12 services running (I can only guess how many NIS has!) - MSE has two.
MSE scans every file on access - Norton has a whitelist (which use to be based solely on filename/location if I remember right, making it inherently insecure.)
MSE is adequate AV protection for those who don't get infected regularly because they use smart browsing habits and don't hang out in dodgy sites that offer torrents, players and other infection vectors. When they do get infected I recommend adding MBAM Real Time protection which has prevented them from getting infected again.
These are two different types of protection, AV and Malware protection. They do not conflict, but work perfectly well together.
As Noel says if one starts hogging resources or causing trouble then reinstall it. Neither are known to cause chronic problems, but are more often the solution to these problems.
Last edited by gregrocker; 03 May 2015 at 11:10.
The computer must know that today is the day I am bringing it back because it is giving me all kinds of problems now.
It has started dragging and the task manager is showing 100% CPU usage at times when there are no additional programs running. I did start it in safe mode and it runs at a good speed but as soon as I open Firefox the CPU usage jumps up to 100%, although it opens quickly. I don't know if that is normal behavior or not. When it's not in safe mode it takes about 20 seconds to open Firefox.
When the computer was dragging I opened the task manager and chose to show processes by all users but I don't know what to look for. Right now the problem comes and goes. It will be fine for a bit and then it will drag
There is an important Windows update that has failed to install 5 times. It downloads to 11% and then fails. It's an update to IE11.0 which she never uses but Windows keeps notifying me of the update. How do I handle this? Is this pending update what could be causing the computer to run slow?
This is common of what I am seeing:
Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7 shows how to trace which processes are pegging resources. You need to Show Processes from All Users, then click on the CPU column to show them in descending order, then the RAM tab to check there. To zero in even more the tutorial demonstrates how to use Process Explorer.
If you're serious about resolving this like we've helped thousands of others do then start at the top and report back results of each of the Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7.
You can reset Windows Update components. But does she have IE11? Watch for queued Updates on Shutdown button to clear first with restart.
Sorry. The thread has gotten so big that posts from days ago when the problems weren't happening kind of got lost in the middle.
IE 11.0 is installed on the computer but there are no queued updates on the shut down button. Right now the computer is running fine but before when it was dragging, the windows update icon was appearing in the system tray and now it is not. I have WU set to inform me of updates but not download them or install them.
It could be. The update procedure takes a lot of horsepower. Many of the updates are available for offline installation. I would try to download it manually and then install it by itself, after taking a Restore Point.
One test for this would be to switch to "Do not check for updates" and see how the machine runs over time. Another is to see if Trusted Installer is commandeering high resources when the problem manifests. Or if srvhost is the culprit, right click it and "go to services" to see if wuauserv is behind it.
Note this: It may be that IE11 is causing the problem. The machine I'm on will not run IE11 properly. It is a rarity, but it is what it is. I've tried two or three times to install it. It installs but the whole system gets messed up. I couldn't square root it so I gave up, since I seldom use IE anyway. You could try a Reset of IE before you try to update.
I also did try to manually download the update and that worked but the install failed. Then I found this:
Microsoft acknowledges -- but doesn't fix -- KB 3038314 installer fail with error 80092004 | InfoWorld
I selected to hide the update since IE won't be used on this machine
I ran through the first 11 troubleshooting steps and no errors were found. I guess my biggest problem is that it appears to be intermittent. Earlier today when the computer was running very slow the CPU usage and physical memory usage was close to 100% when the computer was idle, even in safe mode (although the performance was not dragging in safe mode) but now it's running fine and the usage numbers are back to normal. It's all a question of when it decides to act up again.
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