Increased CPU usage in Services.exe to 100%

On Windows 2000-based computers, CPU usage in Services.exe may intermittently reach 100, and the computer may stop responding (hang). When this problem occurs, users connected to the computer (if it is a file server or a domain controller) are disconnected. You may also need to restart your computer. This symptom occurs if Esent.dll incorrectly handles the way files are flushed to disk.

Solution

Service Pack Information

To resolve this issue, obtain the latest Microsoft Windows Service Pack. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Hotfix Information

Microsoft has provided a supported hotfix, but this program is only intended to address the issues that are described in this article. You can apply this hotfix only if your computer encounters a specific problem that is mentioned in this article. This hotfix may also accept some other tests. Therefore, if this problem does not have a serious impact on you, Microsoft recommends that you wait for the next Windows Service Pack that contains this hotfix.

To resolve this problem immediately, contact Microsoft product Support Services to obtain this hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services phone numbers and support fee information, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh; En-us; Cntactms

Note: In special cases, if a Microsoft support professional determines that a specific update resolves your problem, it is exempt from the usual charge of calling support services. For additional support issues and issues that cannot be resolved by a particular update, a support charge is normally charged.

The following table lists the file attributes (or later) of the global version of this hotfix. The dates and times for these files are listed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To learn the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

Date Time Version size filename-----------------------------------------------------19-nov-2002 16:07 6.1.3940.31 1,115,408 Esent.dll

State

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. This issue was initially corrected in Microsoft Windows Service Pack 4.