My laptop was getting sluggish, to the point of being unusable. Nearly locked up entirely. I could barely get Task Manager to open, and when it finally did, it showed no applications running, and no processes with high CPU or Memory Usage. I tried to open (SysInternals) Process Explorer, but it said there were insufficient resources to start. So I returned to Task Manager and clicked "Show processes from all users". That revealed a svchost.exe with ~400MB of memory load (but low CPU). I r-clicked and selected "Go to Service(s)", and found that the culprit appeared to be PML HP712. This appears to be related to the HP PhotoSmart software that I installed recently (a hugely bloated monstrosity, I might add). I stopped the service (and set it to Manual), but the memory footprint of the corresponding svchost.exe didn't diminish. I tried to stop svchost from taskmanager, but was unsuccessful "Access is denied". So I have two questions:
- Why can't I stop svchost from TM? Is it an Admin Privs issue? If so, how do I run Task Manager with Administrative Privileges? (Actually, my account on the box already has admin privs, so is there another reason I can't stop svchost?)
- Can anyone tell me what functionality I would forfeit by permanently disabling PML HPZ12?
UPDATE: Well, the svchost memory footprint finally shrunk back to normal size. So question #1 is no longer as critical (though I'd still like to know).
