Work In Background Cursor

[wunionworld]

I keep getting the work in background cursor instead of my regular arrow almost constantly. I get the arrow for a little while, but mostly it just sits on the arrow with the hourglass. The computer doesn't seem to be running slow and I've done spyware and virus scans and haven't come up with anything. Any idea what might be causing this, it's really annoying!

 

[burke67]

Operating system and service pack level?

Age of install?

 

[wunionworld]

Windows 7 Pro SP 1

Installed for a little over a year....like a year and three months.

 

[burke67]

Hmmmm....

Side note: You should be running XP SP3. Security is compromised running SP1.

To the issue...

Have you got any external drives attached? (USB HDDs, USB Flash drives, ESATA, MP3 Player, etc...)

If you do; Are they password protected?

SVCHOST***** can be requesting that SHELL HARDWARE DETECTION perform an autoplay on the device(s). A password short circuits the request leading to a loop that never resolves until the password is entered.

Just my initial findings... we'll pursue more after your next response.

 

[wunionworld]

Well I'm not running XP, I have Windows 7. If there are service packs for that I guess I should get on my updating.

I don't have any externals attached at the moment and when I do none of them are password protected.

 

[star-warrior]

It could be a number of things, the most mundane is various installed software trying to seek recent updates (Apple, Real Player, Adobe, Java, etc), your all in one antivirus package may also be fine tuning your pc (or claiming to) etc...

You remember Windows Task Manager (control-alt-delete)? You can try out an alternative such as Process Explorer (now at v15.12) from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals. It should give you any on going processes active on your pc. If you right click on any of the processes it will give you a range of information to consider and the ability to close down programs or monitor graphical information of CPU usage and other things. At the link above are other utilities that might be considered useful to have.

 

[burke67]

Well I'm not running XP, I have Windows 7.

Duh! Read what I wanted there. W7 is current at SP1.

I'll do more research and get back now that I'm on the same page.

 

[burke67]

What Antivirus are you running?

Are you running any firewall other than the one included in W7 ?

Any recent application installs?

 

[burke67]

Also... HTC Phone software installed?

This link covers a myriad of potential background processes that might be causing your issue:

http://forums.cnet.com/7723-19411_102-517913/mouse-cursor-flashing-busy/