Vista running stuff I don't know about

Sometimes my hard drive light is flashing like crazy when I'm not running
anything. What is Vista doing behind my back? Task Manager shows nothing
running.

Rev. Jim wrote:
> Sometimes my hard drive light is flashing like crazy when I'm not
> running anything. What is Vista doing behind my back? Task Manager
> shows nothing running.


Indexing? Maybe an antivirus scan or anti spyware. You have show tasks
from all users selected?

On Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:15:15 -0500, "Rev. Jim" <>
wrote:

>Sometimes my hard drive light is flashing like crazy when I'm not running
>anything. What is Vista doing behind my back? Task Manager shows nothing
>running.

Rev. Jim? From Taxi?

MS feels it's OK to hide their processes when applicable from the rest
of the OS since mother knows best.

I'd vote for indexing being the culprit. You can shut off the indexing
service, it's a waste of system time. You can also install Agent
Ransack and dump Vista's POS search facility - but that's a feature
improvement, not a performance issue.

If Defrag is configured to run in the background, you can stop that
process too.

The other thing that Vista seems to do that thrashes the disk is the
creation of restore points. You won't find this running as a process
as it hides but it's out there running on occasionally.

Lastly, all Vista HD's seem to flash consistently every second or two
with unknown access. Just more MS hidden shenanigans I guess.

"Rev. Jim" <> wrote in message
news:92A46CDE-EF70-4B2B-B08A-...
> Sometimes my hard drive light is flashing like crazy when I'm not running
> anything. What is Vista doing behind my back? Task Manager shows nothing
> running.


Vista does indexing from time to time, this can cause extended HDD
(harddrive) activity. Also, Windows Defender and your virus scanner
occasionally scan through the HDD.

Saucy

"Rev. Jim" <> wrote in message
news:92A46CDE-EF70-4B2B-B08A-...
> Sometimes my hard drive light is flashing like crazy when I'm not running
> anything. What is Vista doing behind my back? Task Manager shows nothing
> running.

Process Monitor will show everything the system is doing. It can
record thousands of items per second, but usually processes
will show as blocks of entries. Also, you can halt the scrolling,
or do a capture, then scroll back to see what was going on.

Process Monitor:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb896645.aspx

On Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:22:36 -0500, "Ian D" <>
wrote:

>Process Monitor will show everything the system is doing. It can
>record thousands of items per second, but usually processes
>will show as blocks of entries. Also, you can halt the scrolling,
>or do a capture, then scroll back to see what was going on.
>
>Process Monitor:
>http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb896645.aspx

1. It won't show you everything. MS has processes running to the disk
that are not reported.

2. Since so many processes run under generic processes like svchost,
it's often impossible to tell what is actually doing the access.

Eleourple wrote:
>
>
> AHA! Just like clockwork the dork appears after I insult his precious
> Vista! A good example of an idiot fanboy is the dork that replied

I don't see how someone's pointing out that you're obviously either
woefully ignorant of Vista or deliberately lying makes him a "fan-boy."



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot