Because ccsvhst.exe can sometimes cause so much memory usage when it is running (80% to 100% cpu) I find that turning on Silent Mode can provide positive help while browsing the internet and using internal programs. I do not use my computer for gaming purposes or in full screen mode rarely at all and I understand that this was the main reason for introducing it.
I have de-activated Pulse Updates & Automatic LiveUpdate as I now prefer to control when these updates are downloaded so as not to incur further load on my resources from LiveUpdate or ccsvchst.exe and this seems to work better than when I had it all Automatic.
I did come across the following articles which do help to some extent but they do not give me a complete understanding of how to use Silent Mode when I already have LiveUpdate turned off. Basically I just want to prevent ccsvchst.exe kicking in at unspecified intervals and stop it hogging resources when I am in the middle of something. At the moment turning on Silent Mode has become somewhat of a lets guess how long I want it on for rather than something more scientific. I usually end up turning it off for between 4 hours and day. From my point of view it would be better that updates, scans ccsvhst.exe and all other background processes run when I am away from the computer so that I can just get on with what I need to do when I return.
Finally, if I have elected to manually download LiveUpdate at times when my computer is not in use would I then be better to turn off Smart Definitions?
According to Symantec ‘Norton Internet Security provides the Smart Definitions option to choose between the Core Set virus definitions and Complete Set virus definitions for LiveUpdate sessions...... Turning on the Smart Definitions option minimizes download time, installation time, and system start time. Therefore, the Core Set results in faster performance of your computer. When the Smart Definitions option is turned off, Norton Internet Security activates the Complete Set virus definitions which contain all the virus definitions for each threat that is known to Symantec’
Silent Mode – Say goodbye to interruptive alerts while playing games
‘Only the activities that require constant on-demand protection from viruses and other threats keep on running, resulting in minimal impact to the system’
The Norton Pulse Updates Feature
‘Both Pulse Updates and full Automatic LiveUpdate respect the new Silent Mode option and turn off completely when Silent Mode is turned on. If the system goes into “automatic” Silent Mode because a full screen application is running, Pulse Updates will not run and the full Automatic LiveUpdate will wait a full six hours before running’
Norton Internet Security provides many solutions and features to handle viruses and other security threats. Norton Internet Security also informs you, through alerts and notifications, how viruses and other security threats are detected and resolved. When you perform important tasks on your computer, you likely would prefer not to receive any alert messages. Silent Mode suppresses alerts and notifications and temporarily suspends most of the background activities. If Norton Internet Security detects a security threat when Silent Mode is enabled, it does not display the alert but takes appropriate action to protect your computer. You can either turn on the silent mode manually or otherwise enable the full screen detection which will enable the silnt mode whenever any application opens in the fullscreen mode. You can view the summary of the Silent Mode sessions under the Full History category in the Security History window. This summary includes the type of Silent Mode, the time when Silent Mode is turned on and turned off, and the security activities that occurred during Silent Mode. I think, Pulse updates, Automatic LiveUpdate, System Activity Monitoring by SONAR and Norton Insight/Community watch will be suspended for time being and will resume once you exit from Full screen mode or disable the Silent Mode accordingly.