Comments on: How To: Fix Zone Alarm (zclient.exe) High CPU Usage

By: r3dux

r3dux — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:12:03 +0000

‘fraid not, sorry – but my recommendation would be to get rid of Zone Alarm and just use Windows firewall.

I used to use Zone Alarm on any Windows machines and virtual machines I used because it allowed me to control not only incoming connections (i.e. lock down all ports until a connection was asked for by an application) but outgoing connections (i.e. I don’t want this specific application to ever be allowed to connect to the net) – but it turns out that the firewall that comes with Windows 7 is actually pretty good, and can be configured to do all of that stuff.

There’s plenty of material on how to configure it online, such as this: http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/windows-7-firewall-outbound-protection/.

Also, once you’re ZA-less you won’t get all that nagging and updating rubbish, and iTunes will work properly (if you use it).

And as a final bonus, your CPU usage will be back to normal

By: dan

dan — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:42:19 +0000

the debug setting is not in the same place in v 10.1.179.00 of the internet suite. any ideas on how to reduce za consumption of all available cpu?

By: NR

NR — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:51:41 +0000

Thanks. Hopefully more will see this fix. Like it or not there are those who can only manage a zone alarm download.
Cheers

Henny Youngman: A man goes to a psychiatrist. “Nobody listens to me!” The doctor says, “Next!”

By: Devon

Devon — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:05:55 +0000

Thanks, works very well

By: Michael J

Michael J — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:32:03 +0000

awesome stuff, many thanks, simple fix, that fixed the cpu usage, kind regards

By: Micke

Micke — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:26:16 +0000

Many thanks for this fix. I’ve been battering my brain with this issue. zlclient.exe was using 25-30 % of cpu. Now it has “calmed down”. Again. Many thanks.

By: r3dux

r3dux — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 02:09:55 +0000

The CD ripper probably wants to talk to the CDDB/FreeDB servers to get artist/trackname info, so you could happily allow the ripper access while still blocking access to your hacked PC game, if you wanted.

Glad to be of service

By: User

User — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:57:46 +0000

Hey, thanks for fixing a very irritating problem. Yeah, what r3dux says. For instance, I fire up a cd ripper program and it wants to access the net. Why? I don’t let it. I have a hacked game on my PC. Guess why it wants to access the web? Nada. Not on my PC. Sorry.

By: r3dux

r3dux — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:48:11 +0000

To selectively allow and more importantly disallow access to the net for certain programs on my VirtualBox copy of XP

By: Me

Me — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 10:03:24 +0000

The best way to fix it is as follows:

Start –> Settings –> Control Panel
Add/Remove Programs
Find ZoneAlarm and press the remove button.

I’ve found this works the best 100% of the time.. HAHAHAHAAHAHA