I turned off automatic updates after the last round of updates, and now, all of a sudden, explorer.exe & svchost.exe are using too much memory...enough to interfere with other programs I try to use.Help?Windows XP Professional - Svc. Pack 3 Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz Processor Speed: 2.73 GHz Memory: 512 MB1 person got this answerI do too

Why did you turn off automatic updates?There are options in between! I just have it set to notify. When it is convenient I go to the Microsoft Update slte and use the Custom ( not Express ) option. This gives the user total control of the update proces.You will get a better insight into the cause of the problem using Process Explorer.Download Process Explorer.For further information about Process Explorer see here:http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/SystemInformation/ProcessExplorer.mspxWith svchost.exe provide us with the list of services using the process. There are number of processes which use svchost.exe so we need to know which one to provide more targetted help. Right click on the Process, click Properties and look at the Services tab.Explorer. exe has a number of sub-processes. Select the Sub-Process, click Properties and look at the Services tab.Have you recently changed any of the startup types of any service. This often leads to problem. Users often disable a service thinking it will speed up system performance. In practice what is does is to one or more programmes to malfunction.Hope this helps, Gerry CornellHi,I inadvertly solved the problem, by switching my default media player from iTunes to Media Player.Hope this helps someone else!thanks for the link to Process Explorer :)Windows XP Professional - Svc. Pack 3 Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz Processor Speed: 2.73 GHz Memory: 512 MB