svchost.exe (Local Service) eating my RAM!

I have found how to uninstall IE10, which others have found to be a solution (have to list all Installed Updates) and will try this soon.
Thanks for the backup info - I will try one of these solutions as they really are a godsend, especially when you have put so much effort into getting customised build.

Thanks everyone for all the tips and I think there is now a way forward. But first I need to give you some more background information (quite a bit actually, so please bear with me):

1. I actually have two Windows 7 Pro 64 machines, one the Dell Vostro with 8GB of memory that I previously referred to, but also an almost new HP ProBook AMD 455 G2 laptop with 4GB of memory. I try to keep both machines at essentially the same build standard, with the laptop being used for testing significant new software as it has no critical data on and can be rebuilt if essential. Both machines were supplied with IE10 out of the box. Note that the Dell is kept on 24x7 whilst the laptop sees only occasional usage (this turns out to be important).

2. In line with my conservative approach, when I was interested in upgrading to IE11 I tried it first on the laptop and was pleased with the results, with some performance improvement and better rendering of some websites. So a short time afterwards I upgraded the Dell to IE11 and again all seem well. But after about a week the Dell browser started running slowly and gave very worrying error messages that I had never seen before. As this machine is used for internet banking and other critical activities a degree of panic ensued! At this point I dug out the laptop and checked that this still worked, which it did. But after only few hours it, too, started showing the same symptoms!

3. The usual response to such events is, of course, to reboot the computers and this appeared to restore normal service to both machines. Perhaps understandably I thought the cause of the problem was some issue with the IE11 upgrade so I proceeded to uninstall this, firstly on the laptop. Interestingly this took me right back to IE8, from which I had to work forward successively until I got to IE10 again (note that you must ensure that in IE8 the text/icon presentation in the toolbar is as you want it, as from IE10 this can’t be changed). However, when I uninstalled IE11 on the Dell I was taken back to IE10 directly, which is where I am now.

4. Initially I thought my problems were over, but after a week or so the Dell started running slowly again (even with IE10) at which point I realised I still had a serious problem and traced it to the memory leak from svchost.exe (LocalService) which takes us back to the start of this thread! I now believe that both the laptop and the Dell must have had this memory leak after the IE11 upgrade, but the problem showed up at about the same time on the infrequently used laptop with only 4GB of memory as on the 24x7 Dell with 8GB of memory because the laptop had so little spare memory to be 'eaten'.

5. After all this the laptop was stable with no memory leak :), but the Dell continues to leak . And last week I upgraded the laptop to IE11 again, and guess what - it’s perfect – no memory leak . So it now seems possible based on my experience that the solution to this problem is to rewind IE10 back as far as possible, to at least IE9, and possibly IE8, and then upgrade from there. I now realise that this is exactly the solution that alenshahnazarireports on page 10 of this thread http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/nsi-memory-leaks-fixed-yet/f3c3e9db-36a7-45df-9dbd-de9455378498?page=10 but in relation to a 32GB server running Server 2008. Why this procedure should be needed I have no idea. But I intend to try this soon on the Dell, but only after I have had a go at imaging backup as a precaution.

6. I am very interested in the Macrium solution for image backup. I used to use a DOS-based version of Ghost booted off a USB stick for image backups, but found that the image writing side wouldn’t play under Windows 7. If Macrium can replace this it will be very useful. I note there are various free and purchasable versions around so need to do a bit of reading first.

That’s it for! Enjoy your weekend!

Well I have taken your advice and installed Macrium Reflect Free on the HP laptop, made a recovery disc, and imaged all four partitions on my laptop disc onto an external 2TB Seagate USB3 drive. All proceeded well :).

However, booting Windows PE off the recovery disc fails to mount the 2TB disc so the solution is not currently usable. The disc just sits there flashing its blue status light . Is there something obvious I am doing wrong? These 2TB discs are being very widely sold (I got mine from Argos).

Regards

I think I fixed it. It is necessary to use either Windows PE4 or Windows PE5 to get USB3 support. The boot process is awful, though, with just a blank screen for several minutes before the OS shows a glimmer of life, whereas PE3 gives you clear feedback from the outset.

Any comments?