Windows Installer is sucking up my memory.

[Big Red Rooster]

The process called Windows Installer has been hogging my memory for the past two weeks. None of the research I've done points to how I should deal with this thing. I've tried killing the process via Task Manager, but the blasted thing keeps coming back. I've tried disabling it via services.msc. but it won't let me even select the option to do so. Does anyone know I can stop this godforsaken thing?

I'm running on Windows 10 by the way.

 

[Mongolete]

How much memory it uses?

 

[Big Red Rooster]

I recently upgrade to 16GB. At the time of writing this, it fluctuates between around 5 to 6GB to upwards of 10 to 11GB.

 

[Math Geek]

what windows version? sounds like win 10 but could be any one

 

[Big Red Rooster]

Windows 10 Home 64 Bit.

 

[Math Geek]

sadly pretty normal from what i have seen for win 10. i assume after 5-10 minutes it stops doing it right? scanning for updates or installing them will eat ram and cpu time. when it happens to me i just let it finish and then move on.

if it does it 24/7 then there is something else wrong and need to look further. check out process explorer by MS https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/processexplorer.aspx works like task manager but a lot more detailed. will show you if there is some sub-process using the ram instead of simply windows installer. they got a lot of tricky names for things to keep you from knowing what exactly is going on.

 

[Big Red Rooster]

I've downloaded Process Explorer. Will killing msiexec.exe solve this problem?

 

[Math Geek]

it may just come back again if it really wants to. with win 10 it usually does want to. need to figure out what is trying to install so you can block it or let it finish if need be.

 

[Big Red Rooster]

"Error opening process: Access is denied."

Honestly I shouldn't be surprised. Is there a way I can figure out what it's installing?

 

[Math Geek]

check the settings app and see if any updates are coming as that is the likely issue.

after that, check the start-up files and see if anything else is set to run at boot-up. i keep getting amd drivers trying to install even though i have it set to never look nor install updates for me. i'm sure other programs can also be refusing to be told not to start up at boot

 

[Big Red Rooster]

Your AMD drivers issue gave me an idea. I just remembered there was an update for my Nvidia drivers. I installed it, disabled the startup apps, and turned them back on one by one while restarting in between. It appears to have resolved the issue with Windows Installer. To think the solution was so damn simple.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Big Red Rooster]

Scratch that. It's back again. 🙁