100 % CPU load in Explorer.Exe - SHLWAPI.dll!Ordinal629+0x161
My laptop PC (Vista x86) regularly becomes very slow. When I check the CPU load via Process Explorer, I see that Explorer.exe takes 100% CPU time. It has spawned several threads which all have a high CPU load in SHLWAPI.dll!Ordinal629+0x161. My SHLWAPI.DLL version is 6.0.6000.16386.
It might be related to searching via Start Menu - Start Search, since I often experience the slowdown after searching for a program. However, I'm not sure about the relation.
Does anybody have an idea what could be causing this or how to solve the problem? Is there a newer version of SHLWAPI.DLL available that I could install? What functionality (which method) is located at Ordinal629+0x161?
I hope someone can shine a light on this.
All Replies
- Hi
I have exactly the same problem (with the same dll and version) with my windows vista version on my notebook.
I don't no what to do. If i kill explorer.exe and restart it the CPU load stopps, but later it starts again.
I don't know why and i haven't found something on the net.
Does anybody know something about that problem? Hello Mede,
I haven't heard from anyone else on this issue yet, and haven't found a solution yet. However, I'm quite sure now that it's related to searching from the start menu search bar. I don't have the problem when I decide not to search from the search bar for a while, but often when I can't stand the temptation and start a search, the problem shows up immediately.
Yes
I think I have found a solution, but I'm not sure about it.
When you go to the settings of the starmenu (right click on the startmenu and properties) you can Adjust the startmenu by click on "adjust"(or so, i don't no about the word in english because my system is german).
Then the 4th point (after run, pictures and computer) is "search files" (or "Dateien suchen" in german).
There you have to choose one of three options. The first ist search in documents (userfiles), the second search in hole index and the third is do not search)When I set it to the third, "do not search in documents", i havent the problem with the CPU anymore, if I set it to "search in userfiles".
Can you follow me?
I think the problem is, that the search in you documents, doesn't stop when you close the startmenu. So Windows serach through you hole data and so it users 100% of the CPU after a litte time it stops and the system runs normaly.
Do this Adjustments solves the Problem on your notebook too?
Hello Mede,
Thank you for the solution. I have changed the setting and haven't experienced the 100% CPU since than any more. So it seems that this really is a workaround!
Regards, Beat Nideröst
Sorry to drag up a really old thread, but there is only this thread and another post on Channel9 concerning this issue. I've been experiencing 100% explorer.exe issues for a while and only tonight did I decide to track down what might have been happening. Monitoring Tools showed it was reading a large amount of data from C:\Users\[name] so it got me a little worried what it might have been doing. Luckily though after a few fruitless attempts at finding some other people with the same issue, I came upon this thread.
The workaround listed a couple of posts ago does indeed stop this issue from occuring, and to be honest I never used the start menu to search for files in my user directory anyway, only for start menu items. Thanks very much.
Adam Miles
- I've been experiencing the same thing around the same time you posted that message, so I figure we share the symptoms.
It was right after a Windows Update following which Windows restarted itself in the middle of the night. Didn't install any new software. From then onwards, explorer persistently consumes as much CPU as it possibly can from the moment it's started until it's killed. I'm not sure what exactly is the cause (or I wouldn't be posting here) but I've noticed and observed a few things in the process:
- Desktop and taskbar are pretty usable despite the 100% CPU usage. They respond to clicks, right-clicks and such. Lauching programs from Quick Launch works fine.
- That is, until I click (or sometimes even point) on the Start Menu. THEN, everything ceases to respond (no hover, focus, etc.).
- Once explorer.exe is killed and re-run from the Task Manager, it works again (still 100% CPU load though) as long as I don't touch the holy Start Menu.
- Resource Monitor reports no udisk/memory utilization.
- Even if the taskbar hangs, Desktop still responds just fine.
- Any attempt to open a folder results in blank windows with responsive address bar and search bar and nothing else. This includes various control panels and My Computer (Win+E).
Vista home premium OEM here. I've tried it with Search service disabled and enabled, no change. I already have searching in my home folder turned off. Tried running explorer with admin privilege, still no change. Tried leaving it for hours in hope that it will go away, no change. Tried isolating it from the network (I have mounted network drives), no change.
I even manged to make some progress, by the way. Once I switched to classic Start Menu, it no longer hangs and the Start Menu even works. Still consumes 100% though.
I'm lost. My notebook, also Vista and Windows updated, runs perfectly fine. I don't want to lose another day reinstalling Windows and setting up my work environment. Please share your thoughts if you can help. THANKYOU MEDE, i had this problem for over a month, and you solved it. thanks man
(btw, one thing some people might want to look at is the audiodg.exe, it also uses a lot of CPU, so try reducing the sounds quality in your realtek HD sound manager)I had the same issue, but I went a little further in my research and discovered my problem. Since the problem was easily repeatable I ran ProcessExplorer as you did and discovered explorer.exe was using up 100% of one CPU core. So, I right clicked on explorer.exe and selected "properties". After that I went to the "threads" tab and found the runaway thread belonged to SHLWAPI.dll. I took note of the thread ID and ran ProcessMonitor with the filter set to only report on that thread. This lead me to discover a ridiculous amount of reads (144,000+) on the registry key HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\. After looking through them I discovered that the culprit, in my case, was the McAfee Enterprise 8 managed suite which was scanning this key. I uninstalled the application, just installed the antivirus component and I have been unable to reproduce the problem.
I doubt everyone who has this issue will find the same application is causing their problem, since I had the application installed on another Vista machine with no complaints. However, following the steps I took should assist you in getting closer to the root cause of your problem. Thanks to Mark Russinovich and the SysInternals team for providing such wonderful tools.
- This post gave me some good ideas that I ended up using to solve the problem also. Turned out it was a large, heavily nested zip file sitting in the root directory of my drive. I blogged about it here helpdesk software blog
Best regards,
Rod PROBLEM: CPU Usage reaches 100% after windows update (Windows Vista)
a more precise Translation in English
you have to
1) right click the Start button (the little window logo on the right bottom)
2) Click 'Properties'
3) 'Start Menu' - 'Customize'
4) scroll down and click 'Don't search for files' under 'Search Files' option
It seems that this stupid permanent option of searching and rescanning the driver under explorer.exe consumes most of the CPU resources unless you got a super new dual core chip.
Cheers!
I had a similar problem under Windows XP, but I would get 100% load only when the taskbar was displayed. When hidden, usage would go to around 2%. It could take up to 10 minutes for an application to load when the taskbar was displayed. The SHLWAPI.dll Ordinal was 505 in this case. I got rid of half the problem by right clicking on the C drive in Explorer and then selecting Properties. In the Properties dialog box, I unchecked "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching", and then applied it to all subfolders and files. After doing this, the load dropped to around 60% when the taskbar was displayed.
I then turned off the taskbar magnifier and the load dropped to near 0%. Looks like I'll only be using the magnifier when I really need it.
- How did you set Process Explorer to only report on SHLWAPI.dll!Ordinal629+0x161? I'm trying to isolate the culprit but can't figure out how to set to only report for one thread.
Thanks. - When you want to monitor the thread you need Process Monitor. You use Process Explorer to find which thread is causing the CPU spike. the steps to find the the thread are above in my previous post.
- Scott,
I was trying to follow the directions you gave, and I guess I didn't word me question properly. I'm confused on the part where you talk about using Process Manager "with the filter set to only report on that thread". I have been using Process Manager, have also identified SHLWAPI.dll!Ordinal629+0x161 as the dll accessing explorer.exe, and now I'm trying to figure out which program is calling on SHLWAPI.dll.
Thanks again. - Scott,
I just read your 2nd post, thanks for clearing that up. I just dl'd process monitor.
Thank you! Explorer.exe is the process that is using that dll. What you have done is identified the thread that is causing your problem. Unfortunately, it will not tell you what application is hooking into explorer.exe and causing the problem. However, to gather more information you can open Process Monitor, not Process Explorer, and set the filter to only monitor that thread that is consuming the CPU. This will let you know what registry entires and files the thread is accessing and may give you a better idea of what is happening. In my case I found the CPU was spiking because of the reads to the registry, so I knew it must have been some application that would need to scan the registry. At that point I was pretty sure it was either the McAfee Enterprise product, or I had some spyware trying to grab information. After uninstalling the McAfee software I noticed my problem had gone away. Hope that helps.
Hi,
The issue comes from the way a ShortCut to a WebFolder is set in explorer to a WebDav Server.
From XP to Vista, the way to set it changed.
The correct way to create a Folder Shortcut is to create a CLSID_FolderShortcut
object and to use its IShellLink and IPersistFiles interfaces to set it up.Opening Regmon helped me to found the "bad short cut" placed at the root of my computer (same level a Drive C
.The solution : Remove any Shortcut to any WebSite located right under the Computer in Explorer.
Now problem gone and Vista working like a charm!
- Proposed As Answer bySviFi Friday, January 02, 2009 10:23 AM
@nmoreau
Can U explain "step-by-step" please, what shortcut U mean?
Best, M.- Thanks a lot, this helped to resolve my problem (it seems for now).
I followed your steps in using Process Explorer & Process Monitor, and found out that in my case, a program called 'wpcumi.exe' was constantly opening and closing files, causing the 100% Explorer.exe processor load. Wpcumi appears to be related to parental control, although I could not find out what would go wrong by disabling it. So, using msconfig I disabled wpcumi.exe from starting, and voila... my computer is mine again, and no longer owned by some vague process.
Note hat in my case, the 100% processor load would start happening after starting a program, notably Firefox (didn't try other applications).
As I am using a laptop, this will hopefully save a lot of battery life as well! Mede, you are my hero.
I have had this problem for two months and could not fix it.
A few clicks and now it's sorted. Thanks a lot.
- If I've learned anything from this thread it is to use Process Explorer to spot why explorer.exe is using a lot of resources. From all the posts it seems like it could be an array of items depending on your system configuration.
I have an Intel quad-core Viste 64-bit Home Premium and the performance monitor showed one fo the CPUs was taxed at almost 100% all the time. Thankfully it did not affect performance terribly with the other three cores running at < 5%.
For me, the culprit was the Parental Notification process. After killing that my CPU dropped to near 0% immediately. Go figure.
Oh well. All in the day in the life of Vista I suppose. My biggest gripe is the "improved" search indexing feature which is meant to improve search speeds seems to cause more problems than it fixes. I think I'll switch to Google Desktop Search and disable the Windows version. - Nmoreau, (to attention of Microsoft Developers)
Thank you, that is a very interesting point!
Removing web page links from "Computer" brought CPU use by explorer.exe from 100% to around 30-50%.
So it certainly needs attention by Microsoft to be solved.
The other 30-50% seem to be related to sub-process "SHLWAPI.dll!PathIsRootW+0xcc" as I found out from Process Explorer. Which also needs some attention by Microsoft. If it is indexing, it should only be one big indexing session, to index all files; further indexing of only new or modified files in real time, which should not take much of processing time at all, therefore - something isn't right.
For information, I have a Core 2 Due T9400 2,53Ghz processor, 4 GB Ram, Vista Ultimate 64 bit SP1 on a laptop.
During initial 100% explorer.exe load, both cores were 100% loaded (however I still could use the computer without visual slowdowns, so I assume it was priority controlled load). The greatest inconvenience was coming from fans going on full power all the time and of course increased energy consumption, which matters on laptops.
SviFi
P.S. Funny that English spell check in this forum does not have word Microsoft in the default dictionary. - Please help people!!
I've tried everything you have suggested above, but nothing!
I don't know what has caused this, but these past few days explorer.exe has been haywire!
Every time I start up my laptop, it constantly uses between 40 and 50% of my processor (between my 2 cores)!
I have tried the Process Explorer & Process Monitor route, but nothing.
I can see that in Process Explorer, the explorer.exe thread SHLWAPI.dll!Ordnial197+0x57 is causing this!
I tried monitoring the thread in process monitor, but nothing shows! The only thing that explorer.exe is doing in Process Monitor is checking the disk space on my Harddisks!
However, if I kill explorer.exe and run it again, the processor hogging stops!
Please help people!
What now???
- Hi guys,
I have the same problem as some of you. "Explorer.exe" is going nuts and using nearly 50% of the CPU.
I've worked my way through the soultion Scott Rudy suggested, well almost anyway. Using Process Explorer I've tracked down Thread ID 3744 as the one that is causing this. And just like "Part.In" I've narrowed it down to "SHLWAPI.dll!Ordinal197+0x57".
After this I've filtered Process Monitor to show just the thread 4733. Here's were I'm in a dead end.
Process Monitor shows lots and lots of paths related to this thread, but how do I see which registry key is reading it in an ridiculuos amount like Scott did? I've never used porcess monitor before this...
I think I'm on to a way of fixing this once and for all, but only with your help I'm afraid. My computerskills are limited and since I'm from sweden so is my english. Makes it tough to read some forum threads some times.
Please help me with the last steps of this . . . / kind regards Matt
- It's me again...
after my last reply I scrolled down through the paths shown in process monitor. I'm using Avast antivirus and that showed up a lot in the list. So I disconnected the laptop from internet and uninstalled Avast and voila' , explorer.exe was back to it's normal values ( 0 -2%). Since I need a anti-virus-thingee I reinstalled Avast and it works fine now. Don't know if this is a sustainable solution to my problem but at least it's a way around it, hopefully for quite a while. I think I'm gonna try another anti-virus program to see if there's any difference in the long term outcome..
If you have any hints on something I can do and change in the setup with Avast please let me know...
Thanks a million to you Scott, your way have helped me so much in this matter. I've spent hours on the phone with HP's customers support. . . every time with the same suggestion, reboot/reinstall the computer to the factory settings.
This calls to celebrate with a cold beer
Cheers
- Oh ____!!!
it's still a mess...
"SHLWAPI.dll!Ordinal197+0x57" is still using up half the CPU...
Changed from Avast to Nod32 with no improvement. . . seems that a bunch of programs are reading this, or whatever it does...
Googled "SHLWAPI.dll!Ordinal197+0x57" but with no progress.. what does it do and why are so many softwares "after it"..?
HELP!!! Copying Part.in words .... I've tried everything you have suggested above, but nothing!
Finally, I managed to find the root cause !
In my case, it was the Digital Persona fingerprint logon assistant, but it doesn't matter, it may be a different program causing the same problem in your case.
Here is what I did:
Open CMD, run Regedt32, and select HKLM>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Run.
I opened Task manager and killed each one of those programs listed there, until I saw the CPU (and explorer.exe) usage going really down... from 48% to 6%.
I exported the registry (just in case!) and basically removed the entry ...
Problem solved!
It is a temporary fix, until I find the problem within Digital Persona and put it back in.
I hope this helps.- Proposed As Answer byprenzo Thursday, March 19, 2009 1:27 PM
- I finally managed to have Digital Persona working without affecting explorer.exe.
I just moved to the end of the list on HKLM>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Run.
As the list of software to be loaded after login flows an alphabetic order, I just deleted the original entry and added another one starting with "z" in the name of the reg, so it is now the last software to be loaded during login.
I think the root cause was related to Digital Persona being loaded at the same time as some other software (maybe the antivirus) that was not ready, causing a dead lock of some file or DLL. Simply by changing the order of the files to be loaded in the login, gave the "other software" more time to became ready and solved the problem.
As I mentioned before, in my case it was the Digital Persona software, but it doesn't really matter, it may be a different program causing the same type of problem in your case.
Stupid problems sometimes require stupid solutions. - Prenzo, I owe you one...
I followed the steps in your solution and just like in your case Digital Persona was the cause of the problem.
I've struggled with this for a very long time, spent hours and hours on the phone with HP customer support. . . And finnaly with your help my computer runs smoothly.
Thanks a lot / kind regards Matt- Proposed As Answer bydraak13 Tuesday, April 14, 2009 10:40 PM
- I had a similar problem where explorer is taking an entire core. I'm dubious that you have the same problem, but I just want to put this out there.
When I expand 'My computer' in the left hand side of the window (the folder view, I believe it's called), it of course displays all of my disk drives and network drives. However, I notice that explorer (at least in my case) only pegs one core at 100% while: 1) I have focus put on explorer.exe, and 2) The 'my computer' in folder view is expanded. On closer inspection of the folder view after expanding 'my computer', I noticed that I actually had one extra little thing sticking around, that wasn't a local disk drive, and wasn't a network drive. It was labeled, 'My websites on MSN.' Right clicking on it and going into properties gave a minimum of information. Deleting it instantly solved the problem.
-Ryan - How do you uninstall Internet Explorer 8. I've had all kinds of problems since I downloaded it.
- Hello, now it got me. CPU always at 100%. Downloaded ProcessExplorer and ProcessMonitor. My problem is that i can't set the filter, because the programm crashs before, do to extrem ram use (1.6 GB). What can i do? Thanx. (Working with Vista, and have the problem since the last Windows Update).
- I just wanted to comment that the solution of "Dont Search for Files" solved my problem as well. I had been plauged with EXPLORER eating up more than half of my CPU resources for the last couple weeks. I rarely use my laptop, so I am not sure which update did it, but its working fine now, and oddly, I can still search for stuff on my computer! :)
-Mike Alternative fix.
Seems that the corrupted data is connected to the user profile being used.
Solution: Create a new user profile and move all the data to the new profile and test it.
For a non-domain computer simply create a new user and add them as an administrator and transfer all files and settings from the old damaged profile. Then move the account back to user status.
System on a Domain: Place an x in front of the old profile name from a different Administrator log-on.
Log back in with your domain credentials and create the basic account folder.
Log in as an administrator and then copy everything back to the users account. Then just the normal reset of printers, favorites and email is done.
This solution has worked for for me and probably less problematic than altering the registry.- hello again, in my case it was the programm bwin.exe. It seems it was trying to search for an update all the time. I deinstalled and reinstalled the programm and now my CPU is bakc to normal. After that the windows-updates could also be installed.
Thanx again to Scott Rudy for introducing me to ProcessExplorer and ProcessMonitor, couldn't have done it without them. :-) - Hi Guys,I have a problem with my explorer.exe, it seems it takes much more time than normal to start up. here is the event:This application took longer than usual to start up, resulting in a performance degradation in the system startup process:File Name : explorer.exeFriendly Name : Windows ExplorerVersion : 6.0.6000.16386 (vista_rtm.061101-2205)Total Time : 45239msDegradation Time : 23076msIncident Time (UTC) : 21/07/2009 8:51:02 AMAny of you has a solution to this? (or related issue: fast vista start up!!!)Thxxx
- Our Houston Computer repair company recently solved this kind of problem in one machine, take a look at our blog for the resolution of this problem. You can click on this link ---> Computer Repair Blog to see what we did to solve the problem of explorer.exe using 100% of the CPU in a Windows Vista machine. I know for sure you can do the same on a Windows XP machine. So good luck to you guys.
- This process help me identify that I have a broken desktop icon referring to Revo Uninstaller. By looking at the thread I in ProcessMonitor I could see that explorer.exe was constantly trying to open that File link and hence taking up most of the CPU. By deleting that short cut and and than removing this uninstaller I was able to get this problem resolved.
So ensure that you don't have broken desktop shortcuts. - Thanks Mede for the fix and ppanggi for the translation. The search indexing option might as well be called "enable constant hdd led". The start menu indexing option definitely improves productivity, but the search files and bookmarks options are just drains on system resources. I would recommend Everything
as an extremely fast & light local file search alternative to Google Desktop or Windows search. Note NTFS is required to index. - I have the same problem. When opening folders explorer runs 100% cpu time and crashes.
It seems that explorer tries to generate thumbnails out of everything and it seems to run into problems on folders or sub-folders that contain movie files.
I came to the conclusion because it starts up movie codec’s each time I click on a folder that has a movie as item in it’s folder or any sub-folder.
What seems to have solved my problem is disabling thumbnails like this
Folder options -> View -> [check] Always show icons, never thumbnails
since disabling the thumbnails it works perfectly.
I’m not just saying some observation I work with software I debug software and write them myself.
Please let me know if this works for you.
- I have a different CPU hogging problem, but I am especially grateful to Scott Rudy who brought up the idea of using Process Explorer and Process Monitor for diagnosing this CPU hogging problem.
