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In windows 7 you have the busy icon that is a little blue wheel spinning beside the cursor when it is doing something. It has started to spin for about a second every 3-5 seconds. There is noting running that I can tell on the computer to cause the busy icon. It gets very annoying and I am not sure what to do to get it to stop. Ideas?

Running a CPU Usage Gadget says I have less than 5% of the CPU being use and I have over 6GB of RAM free. (I have 8GB total) I am running a 3.6 GHZ AMD FX 4100 processor.

EDIT- What I am actually seeing is the working in background pointer (the pointer is still visible beside the busy icon).

EDIT 2 - After realizing this happened with the printer installation I turned on the the printer and the busy icon stopped. The printer is setup wirelessly. How do I stop Windows from (I guess) checking for the printer? That is what I assume it is doing. I am using a HP Officejet 8600

L84
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8 Answers8

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This issue was caused by the installation of the HP Officeject Pro 8600. I believe what was happening is HP's software was attempting to connect to to the printer. When it could not it kept checking. This was happening from boot so I went into msconfig and saw that HP had two applications running at startup:

hpwuSchd Application - Which from the file path I believe is HP's update software.

HP Digital Imaging - is the other program running. I do not know exactly what HP Digital Imaging does but when I disabled it in the startup (I left the other one running). The issue is no longer there. As far as I can tell the printer still functions properly without this running. (IE: It prints but I do not know how scan etc will function).

L84
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HP has a youtube video on this issue when there is a wifi printer connection to one of their printers and their software is also installed on your computer. If this is your situation, read on.

I had this problem until I followed the instructions on the video. Basically, with the printer on, you go to the printer's IP address with your browser and set the IPv4 IP on the printer from automatically assigned to a fixed IP address. Although the video instructs you to selected an IP address outside of your router's DHCP range, I elected to fix it at the same IP address my router always assigns to it. Worked like a charm. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llYNMNKJMX4 No more constantly spinning cursor.

Peter Kent
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You can try changing your default cursor in Windows 7.

  1. Press Win+R and type main.cpl and press Enter.
  2. Click Pointers and from the Scheme list pick a pointer that's different from the one that's already in use. (Remember which pointer you had.)
  3. Click Use Default button.
  4. Now pick the pointer that you had before and click Use Default button again.

If that doesn't help, you can try changing the theme in Windows 7.

  1. Press Win+R and type control /name Microsoft.Personalization and press Enter.
  2. Click on Theme.
  3. Pick a theme that's different from the one that's currently in use and apply changes.
  4. Now go back to the default Windows 7 theme and apply changes.

Note: Changes should be applied automatically in Windows 7 as soon as you switch to a different theme.

If that doesn't help, you can try removing the wireless printer from the computer you installed it on.

  1. Press Win+R and type control /name Microsoft.DevicesAndPrinters and press Enter.
  2. Right-click the printer that you want to remove, and then click Remove device. Click Yes to confirm.

Note: To add the printer, go to Devices and Printers and click on the button Add a device or right-click on the white area and choose Add a device. Remember, the steps given above only remove the printer from the list of printers. Since you have already installed the driver for this printer once and you will not have to do it again. All you need to do is select the make and model of the printer.

Samir
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I had the same problem.
For a really quick solution I just turned the printer on, and the spinning wheel went away within 30 seconds.

Nifle
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Sam
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For a really dumb solution - our HP wireless printer is located in a separate room. I was getting this busy icon problem and eventually went to look at the printer to find our cleaner had unplugged it yesterday to use the power socket!

Not expecting anyone to be as dozy as me but it does show that HP software is the cause and it clearly won't desist until someone pays attention to it.

Benny
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I had been having this problem also, incredibly annoying for whatever reason... then it dawned on me and I had the brilliant idea to go into mouse settings and change the pointer option for what pointer icon is used for the 'Busy in Background' or whatever it's called, just changed that to the standard one. So now whenever and whatever it does in the background I don't have to see it on my arrow.

erik
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If you are on Google Chrome, try disabling the extensions. If that works, bring them back one at a time. It worked for me.

Bill
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I had to remove the OneNote printer from Devices. That solved the problem for me.

I had previously tried removing my old Canon printer drivers and reinstalling them, but that didn’t work.

Only OneNote seems to have the problem, so my guess is that Word was trying to autosave the document 10 times/sec.

Synetech
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LUSS
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