Hi. I have VMware Player 5.0.0 build-812388 installed on a Windows 7 x64 Professional SP1 host machine (Dell Vostro 1520 notebook, Intel Core2Duo T6670, 4GB RAM).
Using Process Explorer, I've noticed medium CPU usage when it should be low, and found out that DPC/Interrupts had constant +-18%CPU spikes every +-11 seconds, each spike +-7 seconds long. I've started troubleshooting it, and when it came to stopping services, I've seen those spikes stop exactly when I've stopped VMware Authorization Service (VMAuthdService). When I started it again, spikes restarted, too. I wasn't running any virtual machines.
1) Why exactly is this service for? If I disable it, will virtual machines still run, or it's essential to run them?
2) Is there something to do to fix this behavior? I don't run VMs all the time and this useless CPU consumption degrades machine performance.
Thank you very much.