Windows Explorer and Task Manager killing CPU usage

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It’s back. About a year ago I had a thread (https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/cannot-shutdown-and-other-symptoms/) on the topic. I seemed to resolve it by ditching dropbox, which wasn’t a big loss–the web page always did what I needed.

Now it’s back. I’ve run three different virus scanners and the SFC/DISM game. After a fresh boot without doing anything else I fire up Task Manager and find: Window Explorer running at 20.5% CPU and Task Manager itself at 13.5% CPU. Both with “Very High” power usage. Needless to say, my CPU temp is running at 75C, but the fan is keeping it somewhat under control.

This is that old HP laptop that started life with Win7–and I’m looking to replace it–but I’d like to solve this riddle. Online I find a bunch of advice that I more-or-less have covered on my own. After last year’s run, I thought I solved it, and all was well for most of a year. But it’s back.

Any help solving this puzzle is appreciated. Heck, I’ll probably keep this boat anchor around after it’s retirement until it’s solved. It’s just bugging me!

BTW:
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20GHz 2.20 GHz
Edition Windows 10 Home
Version 22H2
OS build 19045.3803

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75 is too high for less than 40% CPU use. You have a cooling fan / heatsink issue IMO.

Open Task Manager and select the Performance tab. What resources are being used (screenshot).

cheers, Paul

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Thanks. Screenshot attached.

Another behavior that is back from before is need to manually refresh Windows Explorer to display file changes (on Desktop, too). It doesn’t want to shutdown, either.

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You could try a Windows over the top install, or Linux.
Got a misbehaving Windows 10? reinstall

cheers, Paul

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I completed the reinstall described in the link. The good news is that I didn’t require the backup image I made before the attempt. However, the behavior is the same: a very busy Windows Explorer task and the inability to restart or shutdown normally.

I’m repeating the clean boot elimination like I did last year (2022) when I found dropbox to be the apparent cause. Any other ideas are very welcome.

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Maybe a hardware issue. I’d check the hard disk initially.
Check the SMART data.
Run a disk check – Win R, chkdsk
Reseat the disk connector.

cheers, Paul

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I’ll do those checks soon, for good measure. However, the issues seem to come and go with enabling/disabling the five startup tasks related to Apple iCloud for Windows. What changed a couple weeks ago is a puzzle, but there are other complaints relating to this, so more to come.

Frustrating… my mobile world is iOS/iPadOS, so I hope the answer is out there.

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iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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It looks like you’re running the “real” applications. I ended up loading the silly apps from the Microsoft Store. Attached is how they’re identified.

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Steven wrote:

It looks like you’re running the “real” applications. I ended up loading the silly apps from the Microsoft Store. Attached is how they’re identified.

Here’s a suggestion: Ask Alex how to get the “real” applications. Then once you have them ready to install, UNinstall the ones you got from the MS Store and subsequently install the “real” applications. That may very well make all the difference for you.

BUT, please don’t neglect the checks that Paul has mentioned, as they can give you some insight into just how well things look with respect to your hard drive (or SSD if you have one of those instead of an HDD).

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Steven wrote:

It looks like you’re running the “real” applications

Yes, I do. I don’t touch and don’t have any Microsoft Store apps (except for Microsoft Store).
Apple’s apps are downloaded from Apple’s servers.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Fred

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Alex, do you have a link on Apple’s site that Steven can go to and download the apps from, just like you did?

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I downloaded from :https://updates-http.cdn-apple.com/2020/windows/001-39935-20200911-1A70AA56-F448-11EA-8CC0-99D41950005E/iCloudSetup.exe

This is the version I use.
Apple’s version and Microsoft Store version differ.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Bob99

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Catching up… SMART data and CHKDSK were happy with the drive.

The link didn’t want to work, but it led me in the right direction, and I have iCloudSetup.exe version 7.21.0.23. The app store version is 14.2, so I’m not sure what all of those versions did or didn’t do. It’s in my back pocket in case I get the urge to purge the app store version and reload this.

One thing came to mind: Today’s Ask Woody Plus had an article about big changes (removing new features, it seems) from File Explorer. Has anyone heard rumors about these changes being bad?

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