New CPU usage problem -- print spooler?

[spacewrench]

I'm running PD7 (7.0.14922, build 693916) on a MBP-15, i7, 8GB. Guest OS is Win7.

Something odd started happening this morning (possibly correlated with a Windows Defender update, but not sure). Parallels is keeping several CPU cores busy (130% on the Mac system monitor) and the Win7 Task Manager shows a solid 25% CPU utilization with no apps running (time is used by explorer.exe, crsss.exe and prl_cc.exe).

If I start MSWord, the cursor keeps changing between arrow and the blue circle "processing" shape, and spoolsv.exe, PrintIsolationHost.exe and splwow64.exe start using time. I can type in the document, but it's slow and laggy.

Has there been some sort of change, or is this a known problem that I just haven't found in the archives?

Thanks!

 

[spacewrench]

Hmmm, I tried restarting (both Parallels and the whole machine) several times at the location where I was working this morning, with no change in CPU usage etc., but I just restarted and connected to my home network, and everything is back to normal.

I wonder if there's some sort of network activity/environment that could cause this? The VM has always had network connectivity (tested by Firefox to random external websites), but I don't know a lot about the network where things were going wrong, except that they have some Airports and different printers available.