Solved HP services slowing down stuff, a possible workaround

[Coram Daes]

I use a Lenovo T500 for regular stuff with relatively low gfx requirements. Recently I got a used HP Colour Laserjet printer CM1312. After installing the drivers (network) there is a 20-30 seconds delay on the Wifi initialization on the laptop. Only on startup.

Now I am aware of HP drivers/apps slowing down systems so I located the starting services in services.msc and changed startup mode from Automatic to Manual.
This was relevant to two services that was called:

HP LaserJet Service C:\Program Files (x86)\HP\HPLaserJetService\HPLaserJetService.exe
HP CUE DeviceDiscovery Service C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k hpdevmgmt

Both was set to Automatic and after the changes the delay was gone.

This may of course be achieved by disabling them altogether, but that may have an impact on the ability to reach the printer.

Note: The "Cue" service may be disabled alltogether according to a reply on HP Support Forums:

The "job" of that service is to identify all newly connected HP devices and configure them to be used with the HP Solution Center program. If this is the only HP device you'll use with this PC, then you can disable it from the Services list just like you disable any other service. don't forget to stop it first.

Just sharing info...

 

[nyg]

HP Cue device discovery service is evil

The HP Cue device discovery service definitely has bugs and slows Windows 7 down.
I spent a bit of time looking through boot event logs to try to understand why my laptop would hang, for a couple of minutes, on boots, with the screen black. It was for this Cue service, which for a laptop that moves around, wouldn't always find the home printer since I would rarely be at home.

Luckily once the HP printer drivers are installed this is not necessary, even when you are connected to that printer. So the fix is easy; after installation of your printer, go to the Control Printer and remove software and remove just that Cue service.

Also turn off HP software updates, which are incredibly annoying and pointless since the updates that come down from HP are frequent and could lead to this getting installed again.

 

[Coram Daes]

Oddily enough I have never seen an HP update. Not to drivers. I have installed HP printers for years and and at least 8 different models and never seen an updated driver available for download via the HP Update installation. Other stuff, yes, but no driver. So I do not bother to install it.
I have seen, and installed, driver updates via WU though.

 

[dnz]

Access Denied

My computer is only 4 years old and I'm only using about 1/3 the memory, but it is VERY slow to start up and get online. This article (13 Reasons Why Your Computer is Slow - Techlicious) helped me brainstorm what potential problems I might be experiencing, and I looked into rogue programs using up my processing power and noticed the HP CUE and related programs were running, and ran across this thread...

I tried stopping them and got the dialogue box "Access Denied". I am the one and only owner/user of this laptop...why would access be denied me? How do I obtain access?