This has nothing to do with FSX but you people always come up with the answers.Please direct me somewhere else if necessary.I have new laptop for work running win XP and the cpu usage is at 100% with no applications running.It is a Dell and we use it to run diagnostics on marine engines thru Mercury Marine.I can't figure out how to shut down programs that are running in the background if there are any.Or what the problem is.Any help will be appreciated.Thanks,Ron

Run windows task manager (CTRL ALT DEL or right click on task bar and select task manager). Select the process tab, then click on the CPU column twice to sort tasks by decreasing CPU usage. The culprit should be staring you in the face!Gary

Click START and then RUN. In the RUN box type in MSCONFIG, and click OK. This will open the system configuration utility. From here click the tab at the top that says STARTUP, and you will see a list of all programs that load up and run in the background when windows boots up. Start by removing ALL the checkmarks, click OK at the bottom, and have it reboot. When it boots up none of the background programs will be running anymore. Then test to see if you are still getting the CPU usage. If not go back into MSCONFIG, enable half the list, reboot, and test. Continue to selectivly enabled applications until you find the one causing he issue.

Thanks for the replies.My secretary found the problem.Something about printer spooling.Must have happened when I was trying to print to my laser thru our wireless network.I thought mscfg did not work with win xp?Thanks,Ron