Stop NIS From 'Performing an Activity in the Background'

I have NIS 2010 running on Windows 7.

 

Occasionally, NIS pops up a message saying that it's 'performing an activity in the background' or 'performing a scan in the background'. All well and good, but sometimes I would like to stop or pause NIS, like when I'm in the middle of a resource-intensive activity.

 

How can I stop or pause NIS from doing whatever it's doing in the background?