Turn off MsMpEng.exe starting at startup

[Sivann]

I have a 512 MB RAM installed on my computer right now running Windows XP. Now a days I am observing a lot of performance issue on this computer. I tried to go to Windows Task Manager to see what is occupying so much of system resources and it was noticed that the culprit was MsMpEng.exe. I recently came to know that this is the process that starts up everytime when I start my computer and consumes half of the cpu. I tried to close this process from there itself but this is one time and reappears after each startup of Windows. Is there any other tips how can I speed up my computer? And how can I turn it off from startup?

[Devasis]

MSMPENG is the antimalware detection engine which comes to you if you have installed either OneCare or Windows Defender on your computer. It is essential to this applications to work efficiently. However, if it occupying a lot of your system resources then you can anytime close that application by going to Start, Run and then typing services.msc. Press Enter to see Windows Services window. Look for Microsoft Antimalware Service and change its startup type to disabled. Thus you are stopping it from getting started once Windows loads.

[windows_user]

Does it occupies so much of resources all the time or there is some specific time period? Ideally, MsMpEng.exe consumes CPU only when Windows Defender is scanning your computer. You may notice some performance issues because you will see some activity in the HDD of your machine. It also happens when it is monitoring processes and other real time activity as things load into memory. If it really brings your computer down then it means that something else is trying to grab the processes or may be something is acting so much that MSMPENG has to keep scan.

[Dr. V]

The simple solution to this problem is disabling Windows Defender. Thus you can avoid this kind of slow performance on your computer when you are busy and need the system resources most. You can install other malware removal programs that can provide you better solution. To do this, open Windows Defender and click on Options. Go to Administrator options and untick "Use Windows Defender" box. Click on Save button for changes to take effect.

[Elijah]

You are experiencing some uncommon problem which can occur due to configurations and/or other similar programs. If you are still seeing the msmpeng high CPU utilization problem then its better to contact support to have your logs reviewed for known causes of the problem. There have been a lot of big issues since quite some time, but most of the causes were identified and corrected. As for disabling Windows Defender, I don't think that's the appropriate solution to this problem. Instead you can have scheduled scanning on Defender to start at 2 a.m or when you are not using your computer.

[MrChris-]

It's definitely related to Windows Defender and it happens after you leave your system idle for a while. Msmsgs.exe is one of the MS dlls that come to attention when there is excessive disc activity. It appears there are two solution to this problem. The first thing is disable and leave the file intact in case you need it in the near future, or you can delete it completely. For the first one, you need to exclude the Windows Defender directory from scanning.