Microsoftamengpp Those are zombie processes. Something in windows has an outstanding handle or reference to the process object. The quick and easy thing to check in my opinion is to get Process Explorer from Sysinternals. Load it up, search for cmd.exe and see if you can find a process that has outstanding handles to processes that dont exist anymore. You'll know it when you see it. Another give away is processes with high handle counts. The handle types will be processes. If its a driver (like AV) that is holding a reference to the process object, its much trickier to sort out. Easiest way is to uninstall the AV and then monitor with Rammap to see if they start accumulating again. Note that zombie processes are normal. You'll always have some. When they start getting up in to the thousands is when it becomes a problem. They can cause high memory and high cpu.
Hope this helps,
Michael.
