Today started like any other day at work. I sat down, logged into my PC and was greeted by the thrashing sound of my hard drive. I’ve come to realize that the bottleneck in my work PC is by far the hard drive. I don’t need any bench marking software, I simple try to access a file or two. Sometimes, I simply open windows explorer and wait.

I finally got so disgusted I fired up procman and dug through the activity to find the culprit.

I had to scroll down to the bottom of a couple thousand lines of activity before I saw a clear pattern, but lo and behold what I saw was incredible!

There were literally thousands of disk writes to my pagefile - and all I had done was log in!

The bizarre part was that the files being read and written to the swap file were files I was not touching.

I saw that the process performing all this thrashing was something called “ccmexec.exe”. I’d actually never heard of this process, but after some quick googling I discovered its the exe for the SMS Agent service.

This service (the  Systems Management Server service) performs an indexing or cataloging of all the files on the disk so that windows update will have the latest info on versions of OS files that may need patching. Sounds great, but I’m not sure it’s worth the cost considering the downtime and aggravation I experience waiting for this thing to chew through my 150GB drive.

My first instinct was to disable the service in the services control panel applet, but I figured that the corporate IT staff would eventually get a tad upset when they realized my system didn’t have the latest patches installed because I disabled the service.

So, I was faced with my own kobayashi maru scenario : I was ineffective while this thing chewed threw my file system, but I couldn’t disable the service without sending up corporate red flags that I was a bad citizen.

Then I hit on a solution - a scheduled task to ensure the service did run, just not when I was busy working. I actually used two batch files, one for each task of starting and stopping the service.

Open up notepad (or your text editor of choice), and type the following:

net start CcmExec

save the file as “SMS Agent start.bat”

Now, start a new text file and enter:

net stop CcmExec

save the file as “SMS Agent stop.bat”

Note: you can also replace “net” with “sc”, to use the newer Service Control manager command line tool.

Then, set the startup type of the SMS Agent Host service to “Manual” in the services control panel applet.

Next, create a scheduled task to run after hours that runs the “SMS Agent start.bat” file, and another task that runs the  “SMS Agent stop.bat” before you get into the office.

The best of both worlds - you remain productive and a good corporate citizen (after hours)!

• How to find what's running under SVCHost.exe My PC was behaving sluggishly the other day. I tried to be patient, but had to fire up the task manager when I could bear it no longer. That's when...
• Annoying "next message" behavior in Thunderbird, and how to stop it! I love the Thunderbird email client. I use the portable version on my thumb drive, but one thing has always bugged the hell out of me when I use it:...
• Free Antivirus Recommendations (Protect Yourself Online With Free AntiVirus Software). I got tired of shelling out $40+ a year for antivirus protection long ago. Aside form the price, what really bugged me was the bloat! It became more and more...
• How to Delete Empty Folders - FREE! While performing a disk cleanup recently, I had cause to locate and delete any empty folders under a root folder. I knew there had to be a batch file command...
• Google Chrome: the OS. Google announced last Tuesday that it has its sights on dethroning Microsoft as desktop OS king: "The new operating system, announced late Tuesday night on Google's Web site, will be...

• What is Bankruptcy? Understand the process of bankruptcy before you file the forms by yourself or with an attorney. To start the process of bankruptcy, a person with an unwieldy amount of debt files for bankruptcy in the nearest court. This process is normally done with the help of attorney, a person is......
• How to Catch Ling Cod If you have never heard of the Ling Cod before, this is a fun fish to try to catch that can be found anywhere along the California coast, as far south as Baja. This is a popular fish that gives a lot of sport and the size is well worth......
• An Overview of Wireless Networking Whether you want to make a phone call from your mobile, receive a message on your pager, or check your email from a PDA, we have come across a wireless data or voice network. If a user or a company wants to make data portable then Wireless networking is......
• FAQ about computer security Q: The virus blocked the registry access and how to get rid of it?A: You can deal with like this: 1. Click on Start -> Run (or Start Search in Windows Vista). 2. Enter GPEdit.msc and then press Enter. 3. Navigate to the following location: User Configuration -> Administrative Templates......
• How to Soundproof a Room Whether you live by a busy road, you just had a new baby or your children have discovered the wonders of musical instruments, soundproofing a room has many benefits. Commonly, bedrooms are the rooms where soundproofing brings the most benefit, but literally any room can be soundproofed. It’s easier than......