Sudden high CPU usage

For the past few days my computer has been exhibiting similar problems to the one that these guys are all having:-

Windows 7 has High CPU Usage and slow performance - Microsoft Answers

With only Task Manager open, it's 'Performance' tab is consistently showing 50% - 60% CPU usage. However, when I switch to the 'Processes' tab everything looks normal with nothing using more than 2% CPU and the total used by all processes being typically under 6%.

Most of the guys on the above forum seemed to track the issue down to problems with Windows Media Player or its network sharing service but in my case, neither of them is running. I did notice though that launching Task Manager and selecting Performance->Resource Monitor shows me something called Microsoft Windows Search Filter Host (SearchFilterHost.exe) which pops up periodically and uses 50% CPU for 20 minutes or more at a time. It doesn't appear in the normal list of processes, nor in the Services list from what I can see..

What is the above app and can I safely remove it?

First of all check to see if you have installed Windows Desktop Search/Windows Search 4.0 or any other additional Windows Search tools? Uninstall, reboot and see if there is any improvement.

Thanks Oaken. I didn't have any search tools installed (looked in Contol Panel) but in the meantime I'd found this web page:-

searchfilterhost.exe using up to 35% of CPU

with some advice from Eric Wolz to deselect ".xml" from the list of files to be indexed. I was a bit sceptical, especially since the advice wasn't specifically intended for Win7 users, but it does seem to have cured the problem. I also disabled a couple of options for indexing offline content so it could also have been that, I suppose.

Glad you found an answer John. :)