Explorer.exe taking high CPU usage on Surface Pro 4 - ETL analysis is done

following a very similar thread here - I am posting the screenshot of ETL analysis in Windows Performance Analyzer.

EDIT: ETL file is here as RAR file captured on Windows version 1709 OS Build 16299.192 using today's WPR (just downloaded) and Analyzer 10.0.16299.91

Follows is the screenshot shows like 20+ levels of stack of what is causing it... I am afraid I am not sure how to figure out the cause from various function names being called... I've also completed loading the symbols, but they dont seem to help make sense of what causes it.

I've gone up to like row 48 in stack depth, and still not a clue...

Can anyone please help?

Solution 1:

Analyzing he ETL with Windows Performance Analyzer (WPA.exe) shows a lot of GDI calls in stack

In the Fall Creators update v1709, Microsoft broke GDI and made it slower compared to older Windows 10 Versions, which also caused slow downs to other tools like TortoiseMerge.

The fix is to install the last Updates to update Windows 10 to at least 16299.2xx which includes a fix for that issue. You still use the older 16299.192 which suffers the slowness.

As of writing on 07 March 2018, the last Windows 10 Update for 1709 is KB4090913. Download and install this update to fix the CPU issue.