Can't kill users Explorer.exe

[carty]

I have a problem where I'm unable to terminate a remote users process on a server. The process is always someone's explorer.exe and takes up half of the CPU usage of the server the user is connected to.

Have tried using Task manager on the server as well as an interactive process, also PSKill from NT Resource kit and Pview. None have worked so far. The only thing I can do is change the load balancing to put new users on our other server, ask users on the problem server to reboot, then restart said server. All a bit of a rigmarole.

Any ideas or knowings of a better way?

Thanks in anticipation,

Carty

 

[CitrixEngineer]

It sounds like a rogue application is making unecessary API calls to explorer.exe - it's very unusual for it to consume huge amounts of resources by itself.

Are you using any applications apart from Microsoft Office?

If so, check what happens when you run each in turn.

Hope this helps

 

[jdemmi]

You can download a utility called KILL.EXE (used to be part of the NT 4.0 Resource Kit).

It is a command line utility that allows to you kill ANY task. (Must be admin or equivalent on the server)

Be careful with this one!

 

[carty]

Hi again.

jdemmi, tried using kill.exe this time with no luck. It reports the process is killed but it is still present in task manager and still talking up half the available processor usage.

Any other ideas?

Cheers

Carty

 

[carty]

Another point of interest that I've just noticed is that the user who is affected has 2 instances of explorer.exe running (not confusing this with Iexplore.exe btw)