Rundll.exe using whole CPU to run appraiser.dll after Feb 2015 updates

Question

Hi,

Since faithfully installing the Feb 2015 updates, I have found the next day that rundll.exe is constantly using 12.5% of my CPU (equivalent to a whole CPU on an i7 chip). On investigating the command line in Task Manager it shows that rundll.exe is running "appraiser.dll DoScheduledTelemetryRun".

With some web investigation I find that the dll is published by  Microsoft and is called a Compatibility Appraiser for Windows 10. Is this correct? I can't find where I originally got that information. Since my computer was going crazy and appraiser.dll was interfering with the operation of other applications (ones that I actually wanted and needed to use), the fans are running at full speed to keep my CPU temp under 70 degrees celsius.

Do I need to have my system appraised for upgrade? I THINK NOT!!! Surely this should be a user's choice. I actually have no intention of upgrading my operating system until this computer (which I purchased in Nov 2014) does its 4 years of service. Then and ONLY then will I look at a new OS. Microsoft you have committed to supporting Windows 7 until 2020, so I have no need to upgrade, and Microsoft should have no need to assume that I want to.

So what I did first time was uninstall the Feb 2015 updates. Problem gone. But I know there are other worthwhile updates so yesterday I reinstalled them and this morning I turn on my PC to find rundll -> appraiser.dll at 12.5% again. My machine has been on for 2 hours now and it is still running at 12%.

So what is the exact update that installed this Compatibility Appraiser? I need to uninstall and block it from installing because it is certainly not compatible with me. 

Is appraiser.dll triggered from Task Scheduler? If this is the case, can you please provide instructions on the best way of managing the process from Task Scheduler?

Can you please release a patch to the update that does the job properly for all those users that might want to update to Windows 10?

Perhaps if you want to appraise my machine for Windows 10 compatibility, you should write more efficient code and run the process at low priority so us bleeping users don't even know what information you are extracting from us.

I will now go and have a look in Task Scheduler!

Answer 1

Have the same issue as well. Killed the rundll32.exe a few time in the TaskManager, but googled a bit a found a German website showing where you can disable this particular CPU hog.

Here's how:

• go to Computer Management (right-click on MyComputer>Manage)
• in System Tools rollout go to Task Scheduler > Task Scheduler Library
• expand Microsoft, then Windows
• click on Application Experience
• in the list right-click on Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser and Disable

Simply opting out of "Customer Experience Improvement Program" on Control Panel does not do anything to this particular task.

BTW, if you would look at the Actions tab when the Microsoft Compatibility Appraiser is selected, it lists two tasks for the rundll32.exe and "appraiser.dll DoScheduledTelemetryRun" is one of them.

Answer 2

Simply opting out of "Customer Experience Improvement Program" on Control Panel does not do anything to this particular task.

Thanks for the helpful suggestion.

Of course, one of the reasons why Microsoft posts such a preview is probably to gather as much feedback from such a "build instrumentation" as possible. Therefore I wonder if MS should consider giving the user more control over this feature in a future build, to avoid too many people opting out of the program altogether, and disabling the process in the way that you describe (which will typically happen on low-powered machines, thus skewing the resulting performance figures for the rest) - since the Preview is aimed at advanced users, many will have the skills to do so...

Perhaps a Notification Area icon popping up and asking the user permission to perform an updated "telemetry run" at a chosen time would be more appropriate, given how intrusive this process is on the Windows Experience?

ciao marcus

Answer 3

Yeah, would be nice to get some kind of pop-up windows explaining what the process is going to do, how long it might take to finish and ask for permission to run it. As it is now, this particular executable acts like malware so the only action left to do for the user is to treat it as such.

Answer 4

Agreed. The covertly scheduled appraiser task pegged out my older dual-core CPU running at full speed long enough to force my laptop to put itself to sleep in order to protect itself from overheating. The average user (on an older computer at least) would not have been able to figure out exactly why his computer was bogging down, maxing out the fans, or repeatedly going to sleep once a day, or how to prevent it from happening without explicit instructions like the ones provided by Ricardas (for which many thanks). We are indeed getting into malware territory.

Answer 5

I wonder if it would be a useful feature for the Task Scheduler to track the amount of CPU load that each task places on the machine on average (including its entire process tree, as the Appraiser task spawns one or two other sub-processes), so that it is possible to go back and see which background tasks are particularly responsible for machine load, even after the tasks have finished.