Automatic Maintenance keeps starting while I'm watching a video

[devHead]

For some reason, Windows automatic maintenance has been starting up today after my computer is idle for more than a few minutes. I notice that it's running when I'm watching a video, and the playback suddenly gets slow, and lo and behold there in the tray, Windows is running maintenance. This is despite the fact that I have it set to run at 1 AM each day. Is anyone else having the same issue in Windows 8? I don't have any viruses, or so that's what Defender says, but it keeps wanting to run for some reason.

[Shane Nokes]

If maintenance tasks are causing the machine to suffer while processing video I would solve for that first.

I'm running a machine that's creeping up on 7 years old that can handle Blu-Ray, mkv, etc without so much as a noticeable pause when background tasks start.

In fact that's part of why they are called background tasks. :)

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, have you checked task scheduler?

[devHead]

Well, the 'tasks' it's running is virus scanner, and it always seems to affect video playback. But actually, I noticed I had Adobe Acrobat running, and since I've closed the program, Windows maintenance has no longer attempted to start. Cooincidence? I don't know. Maybe. Task Scheduler shows no such tasks that were running during this time.

[Shane Nokes]

Hmm...Adobe products. :(

They often seem to be the cause of things. Hopefully it behaves now. :)

[CrashG]

Well, the 'tasks' it's running is virus scanner, and it always seems to affect video playback.

That could be more of a factor than Acrobat (or any other Adobe product), especially if you're trying to play a movie/video from a HDD and it's also trying to do a virus scan at the same time on it.