1. System32 Files

SearchProtocolHost.exe And SearchIndexer.exe Causing High CPU Usage. Windows system32 SearchProtocolHost. (Solved) - SearchProtocolHost.exe is reading every file on my hard disk. (8 posts) Started 8 years ago by pinguino1; Latest reply from LH. In certain situations end-users may experience repeated crashes of SearchProtocolHost.exe following the installation of Microsoft Office 2010 Service Pack 1.

I'm new to all this, but I think I may have some kind of virus that utilized these three files: C: Windows System32 SearchIndexer.exe C: Windows System32 SearchFilterHost.exe C: Windows System32 SearchProtocolHost.exe I find all three of these processes in task manager. The thing is that the Services for these are disabled and when I ask task manager to point to the services there are none highlighted. This leads me to think that these processes have been hijacked. I can close these processes if I do it in the correct order, but they always come back even though the services for search indexing are disabled.

My system becomes periodically unresponsive to mouse input and it happens only when these processes are running. This is very annoying trying to play bubble island in a browser online because the mouse locks up.

I think this behavior could be indication of a larger issue. Neither AVG no Microsoft Security Essentials finds any threats. Thanks for any help. Hi, SearchIndexer.exe is the Windows service that handles indexing of your files for Windows Search, which fuels the file search engine built into Windows that powers everything from the Start Menu search box to Windows Explorer, and even the Libraries feature. If you take a look at the file properties, you can clearly see that this particular executable is the Indexer component for Windows Search—though the name probably gave that away already.

If you want to stop the service from running, you can open up Services through Control Panel, or type in services.msc into the Start Menu search box. Once you’re there, you can find Windows Search in the list and click the Stop button So, you can be assured that these are no virus to be afraid of and hence you can just stop them if you don’t want them to run. I would suggest you to try the steps below. Method 1: I would suggest you to try disabling the.XML file extension from being indexed in the Indexing Options and check if the issue is fixed. You may refer the below mentioned link to add or remove index locations. Method 2: Additionally you may also perform a full system scan using the Microsoft Safety Scanner to eliminate any issues related to virus/malware.

System32 Files

Note: Any data files that are infected may only be cleaned by deleting the file entirely, which means there is a potential for data loss. The problem is that the service IS STOPPED and DISABLED, but these processes start and somehow run anyway periodically stealing resources without any service running behind them. I finally stopped the problem by cutting and pasting the offending files to my desktop where it is not capable of running. C: Windows System32 SearchIndexer.exe C: Windows System32 SearchFilterHost.exe C: Windows System32 SearchProtocolHost.exe These three files are now sitting happily in a folder on my desktop because I transplanted them there instead of deleting them outright in case the system then broke and I needed to use a linux program to move the files again and 'repair' the system. I still have them if anyone wants to look at them. =0) So, no services connected to the processes is extremely strange to me. MS Security Essentials did not find anything strange, but I can try the security scanner on them.