Highlights

Thursday, September 20, 2012

SOLVED! - High CPU Usage of Microsoft Security Essentials

I've at least two laptops, after installing Microsoft Security Essentials, the CPU usage jumps up. Stopping or uninstalling it resolved the problem, which isolated the source to be Microsoft Security Essentials itself. After some research, this works for me as a workaround this problem.


  1. Run Task Manager, find the process with high CPU usage. (Sorting by CPU may help you find it)
  2. Likely you will find "MsMpEng.exe" has taken much of your CPU time
  3. Now go to  your Microsoft Security Essentials, click on the "Settings" tab. Select "Excluded files and locations"
  4. Browse to "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Security Client\MsMpEng.exe", Ok and press Add button to add the file to your list of excluded files and locations. Press Save changes button.

Same method applies to other trusted files. You should see the CPU usage drops down dramatically.

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80 comments:

  1. AnonymousJune 1, 2013 at 12:07 AM

    THANK YOU!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. RealT HorizonJuly 22, 2013 at 9:41 PM

    Thanks a lot!

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  3. AnonymousAugust 29, 2013 at 2:57 PM

    thank you jack. youre a lifesaver.

    ReplyDelete
  4. PodeCoetSeptember 17, 2013 at 6:10 PM

    LOL! It's busy scanning itself.

    Thank you for the fix, it worked a treat

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. GoodNewsSharDecember 30, 2015 at 3:19 PM

      absolutely; playing loop-d-loop! So glad you found this..... a fix for eternity.

      Delete
  5. AnonymousSeptember 26, 2013 at 6:55 AM

    UnBloodyBelievable! Literally choking on itself!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. JoshuaSeptember 29, 2013 at 2:27 AM

    Just fixed my problem, thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousOctober 4, 2013 at 11:27 PM

    A million thanks, I had been struggling with this issue for a while (laptop was almost unusable)

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  8. AnonymousOctober 10, 2013 at 10:34 AM

    Legend! There must be millions with this issue, what a joke.

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousOctober 19, 2013 at 10:48 PM

    same problem windows 8.1 fixed now thanks heaps

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  10. PepperOctober 24, 2013 at 11:41 AM

    Wow. I wondered what was causing my system to go into a regular tailspin with nothing visibly going on. Grrrr. Thanks for the tip!

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousOctober 24, 2013 at 9:33 PM

    legend fix

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  12. AnonymousNovember 9, 2013 at 8:23 PM

    AMAZING! Restarted after doing so and 100% to 2!!!

    ReplyDelete
  13. AnonymousNovember 28, 2013 at 12:23 AM

    Thanks so much. This was great on a server of ours that was running very slow.

    ReplyDelete
  14. AnonymousNovember 30, 2013 at 1:35 PM

    thanks that worked :)

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  15. powerpoint presentatieDecember 12, 2013 at 4:08 PM

    Works, thanks!!!!!

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  16. AnonymousDecember 30, 2013 at 11:41 AM

    you should be in charge of MS.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Rajdeep SinghJanuary 1, 2014 at 8:28 PM

    Thank you so much !
    Wonder if Papa MS knows about it ??

    ReplyDelete
  18. AnonymousJanuary 31, 2014 at 6:53 AM

    great fix for me

    ReplyDelete
  19. AnonymousFebruary 4, 2014 at 6:01 AM

    Wow!, worth millions!!
    Apply.
    Thnx.

    ReplyDelete
  20. AnonymousFebruary 4, 2014 at 11:03 AM

    Gracias, gracias, gracias!!!

    ReplyDelete
  21. AnonymousFebruary 16, 2014 at 11:09 AM

    very nice, mate.
    I opened MSE and clicked on its options.. the cpu usage at task manager was showing 12, 16...
    after this procedure, it stays on 2 or 3 only!
    excelent, thanks a lot

    ReplyDelete
  22. AnonymousFebruary 26, 2014 at 5:03 AM

    Mine was 55 now 5 :D such a great solution, you deserve a medal or something :)
    anyway, thanks a bunch man!

    ReplyDelete
  23. AnonymousMarch 1, 2014 at 10:33 PM

    A real solution! Thanks a lot!!!

    ReplyDelete
  24. AnonymousMarch 8, 2014 at 6:11 AM

    This solution WORKS ! ! ! So why can't Microsoft 1) just say so and 2) do a proper update to resolve this problem ? ? ?

    ReplyDelete
  25. Rajdeep SinghMarch 8, 2014 at 9:08 AM

    @Anonymous
    1) They will never
    2) Now they will.

    ReplyDelete
  26. AnonymousMarch 12, 2014 at 1:11 AM

    Thank you! This was dragging down my Citrix servers horribly!

    ReplyDelete
  27. UnknownMarch 21, 2014 at 7:14 AM

    Muchas Gracias!!!..

    ReplyDelete
  28. AnonymousMarch 23, 2014 at 12:25 AM

    Thanks. In Windows 8, I found the file under Program Files\Windows Defender

    ReplyDelete
  29. AnonymousMarch 29, 2014 at 5:03 AM

    Awesome! Thank you!!

    ReplyDelete
  30. AnonymousApril 3, 2014 at 4:52 PM

    Thank you very much, works perfect. Couldn't emagine scanning itself. what a bug!

    ReplyDelete
  31. AnonymousApril 6, 2014 at 7:40 AM

    Been driving me mad for months thanks very much for that!

    ReplyDelete
  32. AnonymousApril 9, 2014 at 12:12 PM

    Vy nice post ... thanks...

    ReplyDelete
  33. UnknownApril 18, 2014 at 2:39 PM

    vry nice.. thanx

    ReplyDelete
  34. AnonymousApril 18, 2014 at 3:46 PM

    WAY TO GO!!!!
    The classic feedback loop.

    ReplyDelete
  35. AnonymousApril 19, 2014 at 7:39 AM

    Dear God. This has been pissing me off for years on several WinXP & Win7 installs. Always ended up in forums (including microsoft professional coders who worked on MSE & related projects) that discussed it to death without ever realizing it was recursively scanning itself. The idiocy of microsoft knows no depth; clearly it's turtles all the way down.

    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  36. UnknownApril 24, 2014 at 9:53 AM

    In my case MsMpEng.exe was hogging the disk i/o keeping other programs from accessing the drives in a timely manor. 100,000(s) picture files. Disabling this process seems to have vastly increase overall performance.

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  37. AnonymousJune 3, 2014 at 4:00 PM

    Thanks indeed. Refreshing to be given a solution that works for once.

    ReplyDelete
  38. AnonymousJuly 3, 2014 at 1:34 AM

    an actual solution rather than a thousand noob suggestions...thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  39. AnonymousAugust 27, 2014 at 2:21 AM

    Thank you to the OP!! This gave me the info needed to do the same for Windows 8.1. Incase people are on Windows 8/8.1, click Start and Search for Defender (Name of Windows Security Essentials). Then follow the instructions but add the following path instead:

    C:\Windows\WinSxS

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  40. Lori CAugust 29, 2014 at 10:13 PM

    Wonderful! Worked immediately. Thank you very much.

    ReplyDelete
  41. AnonymousSeptember 19, 2014 at 3:22 AM

    Great job. What exactly happens when this antimalware service executable, aka msmpeng.exe, when it is put on an exclusionary list within it's own program? AVG resident shield service is using slightly more than this anyways. And Firefox seems to be my most notable resource drain. 15 years later, and I'm finally getting tired of this nonsense. I'm moving back to pen, paper, and rotary phones. LOL! Yes, I am serious. / Thanks again for having a comment board without requiring logins. Comments boards which require logins are a waste of friggin time.

    ReplyDelete
  42. AnonymousNovember 21, 2014 at 5:43 PM

    Cheers Fella! Works for me...

    ReplyDelete
  43. AnonymousJanuary 26, 2015 at 6:29 AM

    As a university student... I cannot express my gratitude. Now, I don't need to beat my against the computer!

    ReplyDelete
  44. AnonymousJanuary 30, 2015 at 6:21 AM

    Just added this to my SCCM 2012R2 antimalware policies. What a effen joke! I had plain jane file/print servers sitting at 90~100% CPU with 4 cores. Adding this line made all difference and made me wonder. Who in the hell is running this at Microsoft? It's the most simple programming mistake I've seen!

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  45. Jonathan KuiperFebruary 2, 2015 at 2:42 AM

    you sir are my hero

    ReplyDelete
  46. AnonymousFebruary 3, 2015 at 9:19 AM

    *bows to you* i'm wondering how many people's systems have died over this. what a simple fix!

    ReplyDelete
  47. AnonymousFebruary 20, 2015 at 2:55 AM

    Thank you so much!!! his was driving me absolutely crazy. After checking several other sites i decided to go with your idea first since it seemed more plausible. I did have to re-install the Microsoft security essentials but the rest worked like a charm!!
    Kudos!!

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  48. UnknownMarch 17, 2015 at 10:33 PM

    you are my life saver...love u.

    ReplyDelete
  49. AnonymousApril 19, 2015 at 7:24 AM

    thanks for getting my laptop back for me.. its amazing.. how ridiculous ms doesnt fix this..

    ReplyDelete
  50. rookie701010April 19, 2015 at 3:37 PM

    Fscking unbelievable. Really. I have this T420s for 3 years now, and got it to barely tolerable noise levels with tpfancontrol... Then replaced the fan (again), put win10 preview on it and got high CPU bursts. "High" is one core full load for a few seconds or so. But enough to force the fan to full speed... even a spanking new one is annoyingly loud then. Got the Resource monitor out... bingo. Now with your fix, the damned thing is silent for most of the day . Thank you. :)

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  51. AnonymousApril 25, 2015 at 10:25 PM

    Thanks so much for this fix. Works like a charm.

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  52. AnonymousMay 21, 2015 at 6:30 PM

    Thanks. Seems like this should never even happen. Fixed my problem.

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  53. AnonymousMay 23, 2015 at 7:07 PM

    Merci !!! tu fais des heureux dans le monde entier - jusqu'en France :)

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  54. AnonymousMay 26, 2015 at 4:49 AM

    Thank you! Worked great!

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  55. AnonymousMay 30, 2015 at 5:47 AM

    I have had this issue for 6 or more months listening to my cpu fans roar all the time! Great Job and thanks for the post. !

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  56. AnonymousJune 1, 2015 at 10:19 AM

    thank you ! it's work !

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  57. UnknownJune 25, 2015 at 8:30 PM

    omg thx!

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  58. UnknownJune 25, 2015 at 8:30 PM

    omg thx!

    ReplyDelete
  59. AnonymousJuly 7, 2015 at 7:44 AM

    Fantastic !!!

    ReplyDelete
  60. AnonymousJuly 9, 2015 at 1:40 AM

    Great tip. Works !!

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  61. AnonymousJuly 11, 2015 at 1:53 AM

    Thanks for the heads-up! I had a client whose Laptop was a complete brick because of this. I personally steer clear of MS updates unless I know they work. I find it amazing that a multi-billion dollar corporate won't fix things, because they know that there are people like you who will find their mistakes for free, so they can continue charging...

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  62. AnonymousJuly 27, 2015 at 8:52 PM

    Great. A big frustration and time saver. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  63. Mellisa@bankJuly 30, 2015 at 6:08 PM

    thank you! :) Solved my windows 8.1 problem!

    ReplyDelete
  64. jwylieAugust 2, 2015 at 9:17 PM

    Think of all the electricity you just saved.

    ReplyDelete
  65. AnonymousSeptember 2, 2015 at 7:41 PM

    Thanks, works like a charm. Somebody give that genius some Oral or something!

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  66. UnknownSeptember 25, 2015 at 9:21 PM

    Just amazing.

    ReplyDelete
  67. RoxanneSeptember 28, 2015 at 2:03 AM

    You sir deserve plenty of medal!

    ReplyDelete
  68. AnonymousOctober 2, 2015 at 4:34 PM

    Windows XP - worked for me too! Many thanks

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  69. AnonymousNovember 1, 2015 at 5:58 PM

    Unbelievable Windows.

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  70. AnonymousDecember 8, 2015 at 9:22 PM

    Great, it actually works! Thanks!!

    ReplyDelete
  71. HilpertongoatsandmeJanuary 25, 2016 at 4:52 PM

    Thank you!

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  72. UnknownFebruary 27, 2016 at 3:40 PM

    cheers ta , lifesaver !

    ReplyDelete
  73. AnonymousApril 25, 2016 at 6:00 AM

    Thank you for this excellent information - it fixed my problem with your clear and accurate advice !
    Richard

    ReplyDelete
  74. UnknownMay 31, 2016 at 2:25 PM

    10 points to Gryffindor!

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  75. AnonymousJune 1, 2016 at 9:17 AM

    Thank you, you are a lifesaver. May god bless you

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  76. AnonymousJuly 23, 2016 at 5:34 AM

    Thank you! if only Microsoft support gave such quick- straightforward answers!

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  77. AnonymousOctober 26, 2016 at 1:23 AM

    winxp sp3, works fine now... tnx!

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  78. UnknownNovember 26, 2016 at 3:09 PM

    Thanks a million jack.. Works on windows 10 too

    ReplyDelete
  79. Used PC ExporterAugust 16, 2017 at 9:45 PM

    Nice Blog Post !

    ReplyDelete

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