Personally Challenging™

Re: TrustedInstaller.exe

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This became a lot longer than I expected so if you want the short answer
without how I figured this out, scroll to the bottom.

Long Answer

So I think I’ve devised a solution to this problem.

First, some background on what TrustedInstaller is.

Essentially, TrustedInstaller.exe is this kind of third-party master
“administrator” which holds the rights to certain files/applications
that the OS deems to be essential. Windows basically gives
TrustedInstaller carte blanche to do whatever it wants — use as much
CPU, RAM as it wants. This is because if TrustedInstaller.exe has
allowed a certain application (let’s call it Program X) to perform a
given task, then Windows essentailly “trusts” that Program X is an
essential system resource — because it is running under the purview of
TrustedInstaller. (Hence the strange, spyware-esque name of
TrustedInstaller.) And since Program X is an “essential” and “trusted”
system resource, Windows will make sure to give it all the CPU time it
needs.

I found the MSDN blog post found at
[url]http://blogs.msdn.com/irenak/archive/2007/01/30/sysk-277-how-to-bring-back-the-trustedinstaller.aspx[/url]
to be particularly insightful on what TrustedInstaller actually does.

Anyway, on to the solution.

So, I would be trying to watch a movie in windows media player when all
of a sudden the movie stutters and skips and TrustedInstaller is using
like 90% CPU, can’t end task, lowering task priority does nothing. And
if i closed wmplayer, TrustedInstaller would go away. After looking
around on some forums I learned that TrustedInstaller has something to
do with the new Integrated Windows Update feature in Vista. So I tried
to deactivate Windows Update but that did nothing. Then I realized,
TrustedInstaller.exe (in my particular case) is only hogging ridiculous
amoutns of resources when I use programs that depend on a certain codec
(ffdshow) that I had been having problems with earlier and which Vista
logged in its “Problem Reports and Solutions” service. I then realized,
Windows is continuously checking for “updates” or “new solutions” to the
ffdshow problem I used to have because I had not yet removed the entry
for the codec problem in the Problem Reports and Solutions control
panel. So, removing all of these entries should result in Problem
Reports and Solutions stopping its requests on the Windows Update
service, which will then stop its requests to TrustedInstaller to take
up massive amounts of system resources.

Short Answer

Do the following:
Start > Control Panel > Classic View > Problem Reports and Solutions >
Clear Solution and Problem History > (Confirm that you want to clear
the history) > Close the control panel

Caveat: The thing is, this assumes that Problem Reports and Solutions
is the root cause of your particular TrustedInstaller using up all
these resources. If there is something else that is making calls on
TrustedInstaller (which it very well could be as TrustedInstaller
serves as a central hub for what Vista deems mission-critical requests)
- then you will have to diagnose your unique problem.

–
naurnah
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