Visual Studio BackgroundDownload.exe using all the system resources

Question

*I know there are many questions on Stackoverflow, for example, but I can't really seem to trust the answer for some reason. I must disable some Windows Task for what I need, but it looks like I might have problems with Visual Studio later, so to confirm that it is safe to do, I posted a question here. On Visual Studio Developer Community, it gets a bit confusing when someone is answering someone's/my question.

I am using Visual Studio 2022, installed it 3 months ago. The only workload I have there installed is .NET Desktop Development, because I am a C# programmer.

I like this IDE. Though, the only thing is, when the system itself is idle, the laptop's CPU fans start to get loud for a bit. If I look at the Task Manager in time, I can see BackgroundDownload.exe spawning and loading 100% of CPU and Disk, despite that my laptop has an SSD with a speed up to 500MB R/W, and a Ryzen 7 CPU, still uses 100% of system resources.

It is very annoying that I have to always put my laptop on sleep mode. Otherwise, BackgroundDownload.exe keeps starting and closing itself again, again, and again.

It also creates folders in %TEMP%. These folders occupy 40MB of Disk Space and get cleaned up to 72KB later, though sometimes the size of the user temp folder is insane due to directories Visual Studio creates for BackgroundDownload.exe. Their names is just a string with random characters, + a dot and 3 more random characters.

So my question is, how do I prevent BackgroundDownload.exe from running in the background again?

Answer 1

Hello @Abdulqadir Aliyev ,

Thank you for taking time to post this issue in Microsoft Q&A forum.

So my question is, how do I prevent BackgroundDownload.exe from running in the background again?

The BackgroundDownload.exe is set and enabled by default. It is not recommended to manually disable/enable/change settings of this BackgroundDownload.exe.

However, you can disable it manually by opening Task Scheduler => Task Scheduler Library => Microsoft => VisualStudio => Updates => right-click BackgroundDownload => Disable.

Typically, some settings in Visual Studio or in Windows Registry reduce/increase the usage of BackgroundDownload.exe. These settings are

1. Tools > Options > Environment > Extensions > Per user extensions > Automatically check for updates > Automatically update extensions
2. Tools > Options > Environment > Extensions > All user extensions > Automatically check for updates > Automatically update extensions
3. Tools > Options > Environment > Product Updates > Update settings > Automatically download updates.
4. For Registry(please modify the Registry carefully, as Registry is very important. It is not recommended to modify the Registry manually. Back up it before modifying) > [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Setup] > set a key => BackgroundDownloadDisabled=dword:00000001.

I must disable some Windows Task for what I need, but it looks like I might have problems with Visual Studio later.

Yes, that’s why it is not recommended to change the settings manually(disable the Windows Task). I strongly recommend submitting a suggestion ticket on our Developer Community.

Have a great day.

Sincerely,

Tianyu

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