Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Rant

Programs downloading in background

Jul 4, 2016 1:55PM PDT

I am on a metered/limited data broadband with satellite modem service since there is no option for me for dsl or cable here in a remote mountain top in VA. For the last two or three months, even though it rolls over to new full coverage of 10GB per month during the 8AM to 2AM daily allowance and 50GB per month from 2AM to 8AM, I can't find whatever programs are running during the daytime allowance period that seem to be downloading and updating themselves since I get no warnings or windows to let me know so I can stop them and manually do this or schedule them for in the middle of the night instead. I have been going through my entire month's allowance for the last two months within the first four or five days of the month and then I am throttled back for the rest of the month to a snail's pace unless I purchase more 'tokens' which are expensive for a small amount given.

I've uninstalled all of the game type apps, and gone into task mgr to see what programs are still running and other than three instances of regsvr32,exe that seem to be running, I don't know what they go to in order to disable them, and startup tab doesn't show anything out of the ordinary.

I don't seem to be given any option to uninstall 90% of the apps that preinstalled with this Gateway, but they never seemed to be an issue before (I've had the computer for nearly two years already) so I don't think they are the culprit.

How can I find out what is eating up all my allowanced bandwidth so quickly in a matter of days? I use my wifi connection sparingly because of the metered issue and have actually tweaked that advanced option, but since the majority of the time I connect directly via LAN, it seems to have had no effect and have gone through 75% in just two days already.

I don't keep any browser open like I used to and Outlook is closed as well so I'm clueless and it's not been an issue before to keep the computer on 24/7 until the first of June and now July already. I sit on the 'desktop' until I need to get on the net or check my email now and I'm getting really ticked off with this,

I'm completely stymied trying to find out what I can do next to track down what's going on. I suspected in June that it was large Windows 10 updates, but I've had W10 ever since it was first offered as a download from MSoft and never had a problem before.

Help.......if you can. Thanks.

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
It's technical and more.
Jul 4, 2016 2:04PM PDT

Post was last edited on July 4, 2016 2:04 PM PDT

- Collapse -
Update
Jul 5, 2016 9:43AM PDT

Since W10 won't let me set a wired LAN connection as metered, it's pretty much also forcing me to only connect on my WIFI where I can set it as metered.....however, since I also have a couple of smart TVs that want to connect to that wifi to update the stupid apps that are preinstalled on them as well, and I don't use any of them, I have to reset my TV's now to remove the wifi setting that was set up with the tv (ignorance really isn't bliss, people). The one thing that I also did that someone in your link suggested was to stop the BITS service, and although I have to do that every morning as I turn on the computer, it's working so far. He did mention that there is a program I can install that will not allow it to turn itself back on with each reboot, so I'll be looking into that. So far, my data allowance is holding at something that might be tolerable for the rest of this month and then I should be ok after that.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions..........and you're a real POS Microsoft by only having the metered connection option for LAN connections available in the 'best' and most expensive version of W10.

- Collapse -
What you say?
Jul 5, 2016 6:52PM PDT
- Collapse -
Thanks....
Jul 6, 2016 2:58AM PDT

I originally stopped BITS from running in Task Manager and it would turn itself back on as mentioned by others here as soon as the computer was rebooted. But then I remembered from other versions that I could also look for services to turn off at msconfig/startup, so I tried that as well. As I 'hoped' BITS was there and I unchecked it and Apply.....after a number of reboots, including this morning as I turned on the computer, BITS is still stopped in Task Manager and my Ethernet wired connection on my satellite modem has finally stopped going nuts with lights flashing constantly and eating up my metered allowance. I've saved the new link you just gave me in my favorites just in case I eventually have to mess with the registry. As usual, even with all the years I've been in these forums, some years as a Moderator myself, I'm completely blown away by the knowledge you guys have and still learn from you on a regular basis.

- Collapse -
Sorry for the short prio reply.
Jul 6, 2016 7:28AM PDT

I have yet to test the tweak but due to a back and forth on another forum had researched this a lot. Hopefully this answers your question.

- Collapse -
Windows 10 metered setting
Jul 5, 2016 9:17AM PDT

Hello, from the post description, I'm not sure if you've actually set your Windows 10 to "metered connection". I've used it in the past when abroad, and it did the trick.

You'll find detailed instructions here:
<h3>How to Set a Connection as Metered in Windows 10</h3>
(go to "How to Set a Connection as Metered" in that how-to).

Hope this helps!