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I'm seeing 2 issues with Windows 10 (1607 Pro 64b) and high CPU load, for which I have manual workarounds which I would like to automate.

1) Acronis' Acronis Scheduler2 Service: causes lsass.exe (Microsoft) to peg a core and schedul2.exe (Acronis) to eat many CPU cycles indefinitely. An actual service.

2) Portrait Displays' Display Pilot: causes dthtml.exe (Portrait Displays) to peg a core. A start-up item. Provided by HP, Philips, BenQ and probably other monitor vendors.

Both issues seem to occur on a multi-user box when a non-admin user logs in then another user does too.

(1) can be worked around by restarting the service, (2) by killing the process and manually starting the executable.

What I want to do is to have these workarounds happen on any user login, so I don't have to deal with it -- but I'm too ignorant about Microsoft Windows to know where to start: anyone willing/able to enlighten me?

I've done similar things in Linux but here's a guide that might help for Windows: http://superuser.com/questions/15596/automatically-run-a-script-when-i-log-on-to-windows

So, you might try a batch file with the operations you need in it, and place it in the startup programs folder (C:\Users\Adam\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup on my w10x64 machine) or check into Task Scheduler. Just hit start and type Task Scheduler. I bet you can figure it out for the most part.

The above solutions will work well to treat the symptoms but the root cause of this is likely that they are both stalled on the first user's process because they don't have the permission/privileges they need to complete.

Try changing the service to logon as an administrator (or as system if it needs automatic access to user profile data)

The Display Pilot thing is probably stalled because it is trying to modify device manager stuff and doesn't have the privileges to do so when run as a user. Look in task scheduler and see what settings it's run as (it's likely there with a user logon trigger) and elevate them to run with an admin account. You can also set it to stop the process if it isn't complete within a set time (like 60 seconds). Don't worry about the limited drop-down options. If you type a value W10 will understand it, units can be in anything from seconds to years, and it understands s, m, h, d etc in short form too.

If the task doesn't appear in Task scheduler, disable it using the Startup tab of Task manager (the thing that used to be msconfig) and create a new scheduled task to replace it with more granular control, the elevated permissions of an admin account and force-quit conditions in case it still gets stuck.

Topinio wrote:

(1) can be worked around by restarting the service, (2) by killing the process and manually starting the executable.

You can assign a login script to each user that does this (either #1 or #2, although #1 is preferred). As an administrator, you can configure the script to run as SYSTEM so it doesn't matter what their privileges are.

The main question is whether this happens only after a login. If it happens repeatedly while the same two users are logged in, then a scheduled task will be better.

Alternatively, you may be able to uninstall or disable the offending applications. It's surprising how many applications install services to enable functionality that the user never wanted in the first place.

I'd just disable the services in the service manager and leave it at that. Odds are they apps wouldn't even notice. If they do throw a fit you can always turn it back on and troubleshoot some more.

SuperSpy wrote:

I'd just disable the services in the service manager and leave it at that.

I would do this first if user is not impacted. Not sure if Display Pilot is a service or just an app specified in [HKLM/HKCR]\...\Windows\Run registry. Use Task Manager's "Startup" section to configure if necessary.

If you do need to use scripts and Task Scheduler, place attention to the trigger conditions of "On startup" vs "On logon".