Win7x64 Enterprise 6GB
I have a customer that over the last couple days, has been receiving low memory errors. Upon further review, I found that splwow64.exe was taking over 3GB of RAM!
I have instituted the two hotfixes here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2815716
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2513330
However, I have noticed that splwow64 initializes when opening certain programs, such as word, even if no command to print was sent, and it remains on as long as the product is running, only shutting down when said program is shutdown as well. Also,
with every print, the process increases it's footprint on the system, and never decreases. This causes a lot of problems, as my client prints A LOT. Even though the increase is small, it can build up over time.
I ran SFC /Scannow to make sure that the system files were okay, and it came back clean, as well as uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers for the network printer to which she usually prints.
Is there a way to prevent it from loading period, except when needed to print, then immediately starts its timeout procedure as soon as the print is done, instead of keeping the process loaded while the program that *might* utilize it is still running (ex. Word)?