Windows 2008 R2, sole domain controller, latest patches applied Every 5 minutes the Portable Device Enumerator service is starting. The sequence of events is: 11:52:39 am Event ID: 1502 - "The Group Policy settings for the computer were processed successfully. New settings from 2 Group Policy objects were detected and applied." 11:52:40 Event ID 7036 "The Portable Device Enumerator Service service entered the running state." 11:54:40 Event ID 7036 "The Portable Device Enumerator Service service entered the stopped state." Typically an external USB hard drive is plugged into the server for backup purposes. The Group policy for the domain and for the domain controllers are almost completely untouched from default. (have only password policy altered) What is causing the Portable Device Enumerator service to keep starting and stopping?

Hi, The Portable Device Enumerator Service enforces group policy for removable mass-storage devices. Enables applications such as Windows Media Player and the Image Import Wizard to transfer and synchronize content using removable mass-storage devices. You may check if any group policy is enabled regarding removable mass-storage devices or Windows Media Player is tried to synchronize with removable mass-storage devices. In addition, I would like to suggest you test the issue in Clean Boot to check if there is any third party software conflicts. Test the issue in Clean Boot ================= 1. Click "Start", click "Run", type "msconfig" (without the quotation marks) in the Open box, and then click OK. 2. On the "General" tab, click "Selective Startup", and then clear all of the subsequent check boxes. You will not be able to clear the Use Original BOOT.INI check box. 3. Click "OK", and then click "Restart" to restart your computer. 4. After Windows starts, determine whether the issue reoccurs. You may also use Process Monitor to monitor the process trying to call Portable Device Enumerator Service. Process Monitor v2.93 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx Regards,Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

hi You can try disable the service if you do not want your media player to perform actions like synchronizing or importing images.

Thank you both for your replies which set me on the right path to solving it. I disabled the service as suggested but was still left with the Group Policy leaving an event every 5 minutes. Although the Group Policy on a domain controller does get applied every 5 minutes it does not normally leave an event. Using RSOP.msc I found errors in computer configuration\windows settings\security settings\ local policies\ user rights assignment These errors happened where ever DefaultAppPool and WdiServiceHost was used in the policy. I removed DefaultAppPool and WdiServiceHost and replaced them with "IIS AppPool\DefaultAppPool" and "NT Service\WdiServiceHost" Its got something to do with a known error in Windows 2008 R2. These sites were helpful: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverDS/thread/7bfe1f02-bb8b-472f-9c27-90d3481f2c53 and http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/624/application-pool-identities/ I will let the server run over the weekend and see what happens. I will also enable the service and see if the problem goes away. thanks for your help to date.X

Glad to hear that :)