Windows 7: MSE proccess hoarding CPU.

The proccess accociated with the Microsoft Security Essentials is eating up my CPU. It always hogs like 50% of it.

under task manager it said name was Ms.... (forget the rest) and description was Microsoft Security Anti Malware Executable.



Can I make it stop taking all my power. I had to kill the service because it kept coming back if i just killed the proccess.

Take a look at this: security essentials is bogging down my computer

I assume the process was the MsMpEng.exe - that is MSE alright. I would understand the 50% whilst it was scanning - and it can do that for a looong time if you specified "full scan". But normally MSE should be quasi invisible. mine is at 0% most of the time.



Have a look at the settings whether you can see anything unusual. And do not turn it off, then you have no protection.

It wasnt scanning. Its just sitting there in the tray.

I suggest you download it again and save it. Then you disconnect from the net, uninstall the current one and reinstall the new downloaded version. Here are 32bit and 64bit cleaners you should use for the uninstall: Tool(32bits) - Tool(64bits)

For some reasons, MSE kinda sucks when it comes to resources.

That's a disadvantage of MSE, it uses a lot of RAM and slows down older computers

44.5MBs in my system - is that a lot?

In Comparison with:
Avast: 4-6 MB
A Squared: 2-5 MB.
Norton 360 V4: 5-10 MB.
Vipre: 10-15 MB.

I guess YES.

Yeah, comparing it to those guys makes MSE big. But with todays "standard" 4GB systems, that should not be a problem. Very old systems is another story.