Excessive CPU Usage= HELPSVC.EXE

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Fri May 30, 2008 3:18 am

Frequently my CPU usage goes to 100% for a few minutes....fans speed up. Using Task Manager, I determined it was help.exe doing it. This is a MS system service.....Help and Support. Apparently some spyware can hide in this process. Try a google search and you'll find a bunch of information on the subject.

Anyway....rather than any complicated fixes, I put the process on manual rather than automatic. Not sure what if anything will result. Ideas?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Fri May 30, 2008 5:45 am

Black Viper seems to be one of the better places to go for info on XP Services settings:

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/Service ... upport.htm

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Fri May 30, 2008 8:29 am

Heh....that's interesting. They recommended switching to manual, just like I did. And I tried going to system tools/system information. After that I rechecked and the Help and Support service was started, but still on manual.

I wonder if some sort of spyware could also start the service? That's what some Google hits suggested. I guess I'll just wait and see if the service starts on it's own again. It's really annoying.

Oh.. none of my anti-virus or anti-spyware programs have found anything.

Nick Geraedts · Post by **Nick Geraedts** » Fri May 30, 2008 11:09 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:Black Viper seems to be one of the better places to go for info on XP Services settings:

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/Service ... upport.htm

ACK!!! NO!!! STOP!!! EVIL!!!!

I can't stand BlackViper's site... you can't imagine how many people's computers I've had to "fix" because of the "tweaks" that BV suggests. Since many people blindly follow his advice and just go "Disable, Disable, Disable", they never know which service is the culprit of their problems.

@Bluefront - Download Process Explorer. It's like a Task Manager Deluxe, which can also show you where the helpsvc is located. This is where it's supposed to be located in all versions of XP (home, pro, 64bit, etc) - C:\WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\HelpSvc.exe. If the version that's taking up all your resources is running from elsewhere, then you've got some sort of malware running on your system. Are you running SP3 yet?

Take a look at this post. From what I've read on a quick Google search, it seems to have fixed the problem.

Microsoft's services are set the way they are for a reason. There's no reason to disable them, since they use almost no resources when they are idle anyways. In my experience, you end up breaking more things than you solve (same deal goes for nLite).

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Fri May 30, 2008 1:09 pm

Ack....that suggested fix sounds like it could cause more trouble than what I've got right now. Apparently nobody is certain about what's the real cause. I'm going to run on the manual setting for a while. Some people suggested this is the only necessary fix.

This particular computer has SP2 with all the current security patches.....and I have auto-update turned off. There were suggestions that auto-update could be the problem.

Just what I need....

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Fri May 30, 2008 1:12 pm

Nick Geraedts wrote:Microsoft's services are set the way they are for a reason. There's no reason to disable them, since they use almost no resources when they are idle anyways. In my experience, you end up breaking more things than you solve (same deal goes for nLite).

So what was the reason for leaving the Messenger service enabled up until SP2 (iirc)?

I also cannot see a reason for leaving for example the Remote Registry service enabled by default.

But I agree that messing around with the services is not for everyone. Better to leave them be for most "non-power users".

kittle · Post by **kittle** » Fri May 30, 2008 3:49 pm

The help & support service is one of the things I disable automaticly on my own PCs.

never had any issues created when its not running.

Nick Geraedts · Post by **Nick Geraedts** » Fri May 30, 2008 5:05 pm

Vicotnik wrote:So what was the reason for leaving the Messenger service enabled up until SP2 (iirc)?
I also cannot see a reason for leaving for example the Remote Registry service enabled by default.

But I agree that messing around with the services is not for everyone. Better to leave them be for most "non-power users".

The Messenger service was originally intended for use in offices, and in many workplaces, is still commonly used. The companies I've worked for enable this service, and then block the port on the incoming side of the company firewall to prevent any internet Messenger spam. Remote Registry is actually used by a number of software packages, and as far as I know, hasn't been any sort of major security risk.

kittle wrote:The help & support service is one of the things I disable automaticly on my own PCs.

never had any issues created when its not running.

That is... until you want to access Windows Help...

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Fri May 30, 2008 6:43 pm

Nick Geraedts wrote:The Messenger service was originally intended for use in offices, and in many workplaces, is still commonly used. The companies I've worked for enable this service, and then block the port on the incoming side of the company firewall to prevent any internet Messenger spam. Remote Registry is actually used by a number of software packages, and as far as I know, hasn't been any sort of major security risk.

Both Messenger and Remote Registry are things that are useful in a few cases, but I should think not for most users.

This is one of the things I dislike about MS; they leave stuff like that on by default. In some cases there are little consequence, like with Remote Registry. Messenger is another story.
Stuff that are seldom used should be deactivated by default and activated when needed, to reduce bloat. There's a security aspect to it as well if the thing is a network app.

widowmaker · Post by **widowmaker** » Fri May 30, 2008 6:54 pm

help and support = disabled for me. All it is is just the popup that gives you useless "answers" to problems. It has never resolved any of my problems whereas google has not failed me once. It's called "Help and support center" and it depends on the help and support service. If you have it disabled and try to access it you will get this:

ntavlas · Post by **ntavlas** » Fri May 30, 2008 10:07 pm

Help service is better left on manual, it shuts itself down when not needed.

Depending on the applications you`re using you can get away with running 10-15 processes only. The 30-40 megs of ram saved are nothing for a modern system though.