Should this be running?

[ChrisR]

Sometimes my hard drive seems to be crunching away for minutes, slowing things down. I see in the process tlist that it's MsMpEng.exe .
Is this legit, or spyware or similar?
I tried End Process and it did, but it started up again.
It stops after a minute or so.
I've run anti-spyware from time to time but not caught anyting serious.

 

[disinfo]

google MsMpEng.exe there are loads of people that have the same issue, its windows defender.

 

[ChrisR]

Why didn't I think of that!
Thanks, answer is here:
http://geekswithblogs.net/Coleman/archive/2007/03/26/109906.aspx

 

[dave.m]

This list covers just about every process that may be running and you do not know what it is.
http://www.processlibrary.com/directory/

Just DO NOT run the free scans because they will offer to remove things that they 'find' at a cost.