Why does Persona Management causes 100% CPU on Windows 10?

[PaulWozniak]

We are having very high CPU utilization issues tracked to VMware Persona Management.

-2 Physical Hosts

-VMware vSphere version 6.5.0.5300.

-VMware Horizon Agent 7.2.0.5748532

-Windows 10 Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise VMs version 1703, Windows 7 Pro, all x64.

-4 core CPU, 6 GB ram, 100 GB HD.

On windows 10 we see CPU staying at 50%-60%, and hovering at 99%-100% for periods to time.

We at first noticed the high CPU utilization after changing Office365 from "Deferred channel" to "Current channel"(Monthly, as it's now called), and connecting skype/onedrive. Prior to that, simply installing Office365 did not cause CPU utilization above 10% at first. However, after uninstalling Office365, we continued to see the same high CPU usage. We are seeing "Service Host: Local System" services in task manager as using the high CPU. Stopping the services one-by-one, we found stopping "Windows Management Instrumentation" dropped the CPU back to well below 10%, but after restarting and stopping again in an attempt to recreate it, stopping this service did not have an effect on the CPU again. In subsequent tests, we found no matter what order we shut the services off, shutting the last one off is what drops the CPU usage.

On Windows 7, we see System Idle Process staying at 99%.

When reinstalling the Horizon Agent without Persona Management the CPU returns to normal.

We are now suspecting this is an issue with Persona Management and not Office365.

The machines are on a Domain, GPO policy pushed out under Administrative Templates>Persona Management to allow settings to direct Persona Management.

We have read thru many posts and tried many different solutions. Even the "generic Microsoft Tech" solutions of running SFC, Windows Memory Diagnostics, rebuilding  windows Updates folder, reboots, reinstall the agent again with Persona Management, etc.

Disabling SuperFetch makes no difference.

We have looked into the Event Viewer for any Errors that may give us a clue, and have not found a solution. Normally our Windows 10 VMs run at less than 5% CPU.

[h3nkY]

There may be incompatibility issue causes CPU utilization is very high.

We've ever seen there were incompatibility issues between Persona and some software which use mini-filter driver in the past.

Did you isolate the issue from anti-virus or other software which may use mini-filter driver.

This could help to identify which software triggers the issue.

To verify what mini-filters exist in your windows, please run "fltmc" (without "") in command prompt with Administrator privilege.

Thanks.

[PaulWozniak]

Thank you for the reply. It looks like it is a windows problem. We have been able to isolate the high CPU to the Token Broker service by using the Windows Performance Recorder and Analyzer.

We understand this service has something to do with the Windows Store and Authentication and was added in with the Anniversary update. With it turned off, we return to normal CPU utilization, but we are unsure if this service is a requirement.

Microsoft is a bit ambiguous on this service, even the description for the service reads "<Failed to Read Description, Error Code:1500 >" Is anyone aware of the Token Broker service causing high CPU in regards to Persona Management?