WMIPRVSE LOCKS My System...How Can I Fix it?

[Larry]

I have a Dell that is running XP Service Pack 2 and up until about a month
ago I had no problems at all. Now I am about ready to dump this thing and
get a MAC....

Anyway, I started noticing my programs would stop responding and even my
mouse pointer would freeze. I couldn't do ANYTHING! After scanning my
system for MalWare, Virii, and other nasties everything came up clean. The
next time I noticed my system not responding I also noticed that my hard
drive started running continuously almost like I was retrieving or saving a
LARGE file. My system would stay frozen and my drive continue to run for up
to 4 or 5 minutes at a time. It would probably happen every half hour or so.
Sometimes I would see it happen every 15 minutes. It was getting EXTREMELY
aggravating. One night after it happened a few times I went on the lookout
to try and see what was causing this problem. I went into SYSTEM INFORMATION
and looked under "RUNNING TASKS" and matched the time of the last freeze to a
file called WMIPRVSE.EXE. Under PATH it listed "NOT AVAILABLE." The PROCESS
ID is 608. Priority is 8. Both the MIN and MAX WORKING SET is NOT
AVAILABLE. The VERSION is NOT AVAILABLE as well as the SIZE and File Date.
I KNOW this is the culprit because eash time my system has one of the FREEZE
moments the time it happens will always be the time that WMIPRVSE ran last.

So basically I have a system that is TOTALLY USELESS on several different
occasions during any one computing session. I have done a lot of searching
and reading and have yet to find a solution. The Knowledge Base isn't any
good because those fixes are only for Windows SERVER and I am NOT running
that. I have also read many postings in these newsgroups and despite many
people seeming to have this problem, I have yet to find a solution. I don't
want to call Microsoft and pay for someone I can't understand to try and fix
it.

This is just a BASIC home system with nothing strange installed on it. It
doesn't have SERVER or any type of .NET stuff on it.

I am hoping that someone on here can help me fix this thing. I am just
about at my wits end with this thing. I know my hard drive is totally
occupied and my CPU will go to 100% each and every time this thing starts. I
have scanned with just about every kind of protection program and blocker
that I can find and still NOTHING has changed. If I can't get help here I am
just going to format my drive and re-install XP and all my stuff. If that
doesn't fix it then I am going to a MAC.

PLEASE SOMEONE tell me how to fix this and return my computer back to the
enjoyable machine I had a month or so ago.

Thanks for your time and help.

BD

 

[Grand_Poobah]

Google is your friend. If you enter "WMIPRVSE.EXE" into Google, you get
hundreds of hits - most of then describe some sort of system slowdown.
Give it a try.

GP

--->

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have a Dell that is running XP Service Pack 2 and up until about a month
ago I had no problems at all. Now I am about ready to dump this thing and
get a MAC....

Anyway, I started noticing my programs would stop responding and even my
mouse pointer would freeze. I couldn't do ANYTHING! After scanning my
system for MalWare, Virii, and other nasties everything came up clean.

How did you scan it? With what? It probably *is* a virus or worm. What
folder is this file in? Note that the worm "W32/Sonebot-B drops a copy
of itself to the Windows System32 folder with the filename
WMIPRVSE.EXE" Read here:
http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/analyses/w32sonebotb.html

There are removal instructions for it there too.

I am hoping that someone on here can help me fix this thing. I am just
about at my wits end with this thing. I know my hard drive is totally
occupied and my CPU will go to 100% each and every time this thing starts. I
have scanned with just about every kind of protection program and blocker
that I can find and still NOTHING has changed. If I can't get help here I am
just going to format my drive and re-install XP and all my stuff.

Reformatting and reinstalling will undoubtedly fix it. But my view is
that it's a terrible way to solve such a problem. Besides its being
time-consuming and a lot of trouble, since you never will have found
out what the problem was, you'll probably repeat the behavior which
caused it and quickly find yourself back in the same situation.

By the way, I found the above, which is probably the answer to your
problem, with Google in a minute or two.