Background Program Effect on CPU Performance

Question

Below is a script that runs in the background and modifies the manner in which the backspace key works. It comes from the How To Geek. I believe the script takes ram from the computer, but does it steal cycles during the time the backspace key isn't hit. In other words does the background program not take any cycles until the trigger event occurs?

#IfWinActive, ahk_class CabinetWClass
Backspace::
 ControlGet renamestatus,Visible,,Edit1,A
 ControlGetFocus focussed, A
 if(renamestatus!=1&&(focussed=”DirectUIHWND3″||focussed=SysTreeView321))
 {
 SendInput {Alt Down}{Up}{Alt Up}
 }else{
 Send {Backspace}
 }
#IfWinActive

Answer 1

What does my script do?

No, it adds an hotkey event handler to the event handler list of the system.

So, it will not perform CPU cycles when idle...

How to check?

1. Download Process Explorer.
2. Add a cycles and cycles delta column and check it for the process. Let me demonstrate you...

Answer 2

Autohotkey is open source, so you could ask someone familiar with the code for a definite answer. Normally something like this would listen for every keypress, and quickly halt whenever it knows it's not a backspace.