Vista explorer.exe using max cpu and tablet pc driver issues

Issue 1 - explorer.exe using max cpu

A few days ago, I realized that after my laptop had booted up and had been running for a while, I noticed that it was a little sluggish. I opened Task Manager and saw that explorer.exe was using ~50% cpu (one of my dual cores) constantly. I then started to noticed that this happens every time I boot up. Not cool. It's not very easy to diagnose issues with explorer.exe since it's used so heavily from the Windows OS.

More specifically, right after I boot into Vista, I would open Task Manager and see that explorer.exe is running somewhere from 0 to 4% cpu, then about 15 seconds later, was when it would jump up to ~50%. After a few more reboots I was able to see that DpAgent.exe would jump from 0% to a constant 7% cpu usage at the same time that explorer.exe would jump up to 50. That's a pretty good indication DpAgent.exe is conflicting somehow, so I killed DpAgent.exe and sure enough, explorer.exe jumps back down to 0%. However, DpAgent.exe is my Fingerprint reader driver. I don't *need* it, but I sure would like to use it if the Fingerprint reader came with my laptop, ya know? Thing is, this conflict just started not too long ago (I would've noticed it months ago).

So now I'm trying to think about all the stuff I've installed recently. The most obvious was Java, since Java is notorious for running slower on Windows (at least not too long ago). I noticed I had a JDK installed along with two separate updates. I uninstalled all three, and sure enough, when I reboot, DpAgent.exe no longer causes explorer.exe to jump it's cpu usage.

Well, this sucks. Cause I've recently started using NetBeans IDE and I'd like the option of continuing to use it. (I also have it under Ubuntu dual booted on my laptop, so that's always an option to use it there as well). Anyway, I remember that when I installed NetBeans IDE, it comes with a Java SDK (that's how I originally installed the Java SDK.. through the NetBeans install.) But, how does NetBeans work when you install a new Java SDK? It turns out that there's a netbeans config file where you specify the path to Java, and I wasn't modifying this after Java was being updated.

So I decided to download the latest SDK from http://java.sun.com, and I found out that according to Sun, you *must* use the 64bit install if you are using a 64bit OS. I'm guessing NetBeans doesn't come with that (I don't see any 64bit download option for Windows on their site), so this could be the whole issue. Anyway, after installing 64bit JDK, I changed the NetBeans config file and all is good: The Fingerprint reader driver no longer causes explorer.exe to use 50% cpu, and I can still use NetBeans IDE with Java.

Issue 2 - tablet pc driver error

This has been happening for about the past three weeks or so. Upon bootup into Vista, I'd get a message saying "Tablet Service for consumer driver has stopped working", and my Tablet Pen would no longer work. This only happens some of the time. It's very random. I've tried disabling several different things, such as Nod32 Antivirus, Windows Defender, and other startup services, but I would still get the random crashes.

I was about to install a slightly newer version of the driver located at Wacom, but when I uninstalled the current Tablet Pen driver under Add/Remove Programs and rebooted, I noticed that the Pen still worked just fine. So I'm guessing there was a duplicate driver installed somehow at some point. Not sure exactly, but I'm not going to bother to install the new driver if all is working well as is. I've rebooted several times, and I no longer see the tablet service crash message. I've also read that installing the newer driver has caused some issues for some Tablet PC users, so I'd rather not mess with it anyway.

Anyway, the laptop is in optimal condition once again, so I'm happy. Maybe now I can get some coding done before my wife and I leave for Vegas and the Grand Canyon.