Vista - High CPU utilization with svchost.exe / dwm.exe

Been running Vista Enterprise for almost a year, with no issues. This problem just began last night.

When booting my computer, I have about 1 minute after I reach the desktop before my CPU utilization goes way up. I have a Intel Core2Duo, so the rogue process takes up only 50% (appears to only use 1 core). Even so, I am unable to do just about anything (open windows, close windows, click start menu, ctrl+alt+del). The task manager (if I had it open already) will still update though.

I see that svchost.exe is using exactly 50% of my CPU, and roughly 42MB ram. Using process explorer, it would appear that the child process of that svchost.exe instance is dwm.exe.

I've disable the Aero interface, and have disabled the Desktop Window Manager Session Manager service, so it won't start. The CPU still goes up, only now, there is no child process under svchost.exe, and it still goes to 50%.

I have left the computer running over 10 minutes, with no change. No hardware or software changes have been made. Antivirus is NOD32 (up-to-date, and even disable for troubleshooting). I am at a loss as to what is the issue. Any ideas?

I'm getting the same problem - see above in "Boot into molasses".

Perhaps it's one of those bugs that Msoft can't/won't fix, so they prefer
to not acknowledge its existence.

"duucfho" wrote: