When I checked a Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 system for which I had received a report from the user that it was running very slowly, I found multiple HPBOID.EXE and HPBPRO.EXE processes running. I counted them with
tasklist /fi "imagename eq hpboid.exe | find /c /i
"hpboid.exe" and tasklist /fi "imagename eq hpbpro.exe" |
find /c /i "hpbpro.exe". I found there were 63 instances of
hpboid.exe and 49 instances of hpbpro.exe running.
The processes were each taking from 56K to 76K of memory.
At hpboid.exe
Windows process - What is it?, I found the hpboid process
described as follows:
The process HP Status Server Module belongs to the software HP Status Server or HP Deskjet or HP Status Server Module by Hewlett-Packard Company (www.hp.com).
Description: File hpboid.exe is located in a subfolder of C:\Windows\System32 or sometimes in the folder C:\Windows\System32. Known file sizes on Windows XP are 73728 bytes (96% of all occurrence), 61440 bytes.
The program has no visible window. File hpboid.exe is not a Windows system file.
At have multiple hpboid.exe & hpbpro.exe processes, WHY?, I found others reporting the same problem. Someone posted the following script as a solution for eliminating the processes.
net stop spooler
sleep 5
taskkill /F /IM HPBOID.exe
taskkill /F /IM HPBPRO.exe
sleep 5
net start spoolerThe poster suggested the script be saved as kill_hpprocess.cmd
and run through the Windows task scheduler. The poster stated he found the
script at
HPBOID.EXE remove it permanently. The author of the blog article
there states the following:
Some HP Printer drivers install a service called HP Status Server based on an executable called hpboid.exe, on terminal service machine it start itself many times and it doesn't remove it whenever user disconnect itself consuming too much resources.
He offers some steps to solve the problem on that webpage. Someone else
posted the script there as a way to solve the problem. Another poster
suggests the problem can be solved instead following advice from
Hewlett-Packard (HP), which is the company
responsible for hpboid.exe and hpbpro.exe. He
references
HP Deskjet 6980 Series Printer - Computer Crashes when Printing Over a
Network and Network Task Manager Shows Multiple Instances of hpboid.exe
Running
The HP webpage lists the following as solutions to the problem:
IssueTask Manager shows multiple instances of hpboid.exe running. This consumes all the resources and the computer ultimately crashes. This happens when the printer is printing over a network.SolutionChoose one of the solutions below.Solution oneFollow the steps below to resolve this issue.
I followed the steps HP listed in solution one. I stoped the
HP Status Server service. That reduced the number of
hpboid.exe processes by only one, however, from 63 to 62. It
did not reduce the number of hpbpro.exe processes. I stopped
the HP Port Resolver service. That reduced the number of
hpbpro.exe processes by one from 49 to 48. Since there were
still many instances of each process running, I killed all of the others
with the following commands:
taskkill /f /fi "imagename eq hpboid.exe"
taskkill /f /fi "imagename eq hpbpro.exe"
I saw a substantial reduction in the amount of memory being used when I killed all instances of those two processes.
References:
-
hpboid.exe Windows process - What is it?
file.net - Windows XP file forum -
have multiple hpboid.exe & hpbpro.exe processes, WHY?
September 21, 2007
Experts Exchange -
HPBOID.EXE remove it permanently
October 2007
Vittorio Pavesi -
HP Deskjet 6980 Series Printer - Computer Crashes when Printing Over a Network
and Network Task Manager Shows Multiple Instances of hpboid.exe Running
Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
