Hyperactive MSGSRV EXE

MSGSRV EXE has been very active for the past day or so. I constantly get an intermittent hour-glass in all programs. Even get the hour-glass on the desktop with Explore and Systray the only thing running and nothing in the taskbar.

It takes a while to start acting up after a reboot – a couple of minutes if I have a bunch of stuff going to an hour if the computer isn’t very busy. If I use the three finger salute and end task on any running process it stops for a short while and starts up again.

WinTop says MSGSRV is taking about 20% of my total CPU cycles, and I can’t establish any relationship between when it is active and activity in any other program.

ScanDisc won’t run while it is active, but I managed to complete ScanDisc just after a reboot – no problems. I’ve defragged and cleaned out all my temp files and the registry. Did a thorough virus scan with Norton which found a home[1].js file and isolated it. Norton Utilities 2001 even got to make a guest appearance and scan the whole system. Amazingly it fixed a bunch of stuff and the computer is still working, albeit with the hourglass still bugging me.

I’ve found plenty of articles about MSGSRV error messages and it not responding – but nothing on hyperactivity. I have a superficial knowledge of what it does and have read the MS Knowledge base explaining it. No help in my understanding my problem.

I keep my AV up to date and ZoneAlarm is always active, so I’m not sure how home[1].js got into my temp internet files. I’ve searched Norton’s data base with no joy and submitted the file to them. ScriptBlocking is active and install on demand is unchecked. Not sure it might not be a red herring.

Anyone ever have MSGSRV go berserk? How did you fix it?


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