Hello again all. I’m not sure where to post this, nor am I sure how to word it properly but I’ll do my best.
On a Vista 32 machine, I noticed this morning the machine fans running at a constant speed non-stop as if under heavy load. I opened Killswitch and noticed one of a few instances of wmiprvse.exe using excessive / sporadic amounts of CPU. Checking the properties of the instance using the CPU using Killswitch, I click on the (handles) tab, and notice instances of Dragon and Firefox continually opening and being closed by Killswitch (see attached image). I’m not sure if this constant opening and closing is the culprit or not.
If I perform this action as per Microsoft Support:
*Stopping Winmgmt Service
*The following procedure describes how to stop the WMI Service.
*To stop Winmgmt Service
*At a command prompt, enter net stop winmgmt.
*Other services that are dependent on the WMI service also halt, such as SMS Agent Host or Windows Firewall.
The instances of wmiprvse.exe close, the CPU drops, and PC fans idle back to normal speed. Once I reopen the winmgmt service at command prompt, the CPU climbs, fans kick on, and Killswitch goes back to closing the browser handles described above.
Two things of note:
1) Machine was updated on patch Tuesday, however I used machine all day and night Wed. and I did not notice this performance issue until today (Thursday).
2) Priv Dog is installed as both stand alone application and installed as inclusive package with Dragon. I noticed it updated today (Thursday) on both this machine and others on the network, however other machines on the network are performing normally.
Any feedback would be appreciated.
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WMI service getting upset is caused by Privdog. The only version not doing this is a beta version: v3.0.0.75. For some strange reason the bug returned with the final release.
Thanks for the feedback. Uninstalling the standalone Priv Dog Service cured my (wmiprvse.exe) (High CPU) issue.
Note: After uninstalling the stand alone Priv Dog App, I still see (attached photo) (Priv Dog) program on my windows machine installed programs list. It is through my experience that this appearance of (Priv Dog w/ {circle / slash}) must be a left over program / registry entry related to (Dragon Browser) extension, as upon opening (Dragon) or (FF), the (Priv Dog) extension still appears in either Browser, and appears to be effectively blocking cookies and applying “Trusted Ad’s” to visited sites, however, not causing (wmiprvse.exe) to experience high CPU usage.
Note #2: I intend to edit and upload a portion of video podcast of Security Now, in which Steve Gibson conveys today’s tech word about the (Superfish “malware”) and it’s (alleged) ties to Melih and Komodia (see video cast @ 35 minutes - 40 minutes)… That’s right, the word on the nets is, Komodia, is somewhat related to similar technologies that Melih is promoting with (Priv Dog).
I personally have always questioned the functionality of having (Priv Dog) installed as a "safe ad service redirect" and it's potential interference with browser HTTPS security measures.
The meat of the issue is better described by the explainer in chief himself (Steve Gibson / https://grc.com) in the following video podcast http://twit.tv/show/security-now/496 (after the opening ads) within the first 40 minutes (show notes available). I, as well as other security conscious induviduals of the net await a direct response from Melih himself to explain the functionality of the service and it's potential security risk to the trusting users of Comodo "trusted" products and services ASAP.
“comodo is in the doghouse too… comodo CEO, is involved with Priv Dog that some people are concerned is worse than Komodia”
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I will review ASAP, thanks. I think the ultimate issue at hand is, the KEY is easily deciphered, and is therefore open for business