I suspect MSFT may be accessing your computer at that time for updates, bug fixes, etc. Upchuck
I was trying to stay out of this conversation because of Dayglored's request that we keep it nice and for a change mention the things we like about Windows 10. Microsoft has put a lot of effort and billions of dollars into Windows 10 for all of our benefit. And basically Windows 10 works well, it supports our new hardware, it does a lot and provides a secure platform for computer applications and programs that we depend on.
But the problem you mention is one of the things that I dislike the most about Windows 10... Processor and memory usage suddenly go through the roof, all the fans come on and the computer becomes nearly unusable for intermittent and unpredictable amounts of time. It can be especially annoying when you are out and about and low on battery power. When one spends time investigating in fear that malware or some foreign presence is hijacking the computer... it almost always comes back to Microsoft.
When I was using my first home computer a TI99-4a in 1981 I could not have imagined this type of scenario. I was the master of that little console and it's "expansion box". I was the master of all my later computers and operating systems... up to Windows 7... when Microsoft first started trying to force us to migrate to Windows 10. Satya Narayana Nadella sent the message loud and clear, "Microsoft is the master of your computer! The operating system is a service and you are just along for the ride. Complain all you want, because we don't give a sh!t!!!"
At first many of us were able to fight this forced migration with third party apps such as "Never 10" etc... and all the way up to trying various builds of Linux. But many of the "apps and programs" I depend on and even new hardware now run well only on machines with Windows 10.
After going through all of that I ended up upgrading nearly all of our licenses to "pro" to try and get back a little more control over these annoying processes... But it is very clear that Microsoft is still very much in control. With almost every new service update you find some new "added feature" that you have to figure out how to disable. How about all the notifications that are built into the operating system that work through the "Edge Browser", so that when you are working on some sort of document and not even using your internet browser... some pop-up comes up trying to sell you something or worse... some anti-Trump Propaganda. Back to the "control panel" to disable all notifications...
I was a Microsoft booster from about MS-DOS 2.1 which we used in the "PCs" in the computer lab that I had a work study job in. This continued all the way to Windows 7. I experimented with plenty of other operating systems and computers, but for actual work it was always Microsoft. And I was very grateful to Microsoft for providing a stable no nonsense platform.
I got my wife and my 8" Amazon Fire Tablets for something like $40 each... probably less than it cost to produce them so I expect Jeff Bezos and company to annoy me with nonsense trying to sell me stuff and influence my opinion. But we paid hundreds of dollars for our laptops and then even more to upgrade the operating systems and we still get pestered with this never ending crap.
That line of thinking is precisely why I'm running Win 7 and will never willingly migrate to Win 10. It's MY computer, it's MY Internet connection. I get very upset, understandably I think, when someone comes along and decides what's gonna happen with my computer.
If for some reason in the future I have to give up Win 7, I will happily go to Linux.
I'd second all of that. With the possible exception of "for all of our benefit". [tinfoil_hat] I suspect it was mostly for the benefit of their marketing partners and the government. [/tinfoil_hat]
Win10 runs great, under the hood. I'd like to use it more. In fact I'd even switch my allegiance from Win7 to Win10, if they would only:
It's entirely possible. They just refuse to do it. Total arrogance.
Put the d@mn settings back in the dialogs, under "Advanced" if they want. It's not like the options were taken out of the Registry. They were just made unavailable through the dialogs. Total arrogance.
Sure, I'd rather they didn't push the updates, but I can tolerate them. And I'd rather not have to disable their spyware/telemetry settings again every time they push an update. But those things are a minor annoyance compared to having a GUI that is simply too stupid and unusable to do anything other than launch Microsoft Office.
But that's what Windows has become. It's no longer an operating system as we have defined operating systems for 50 years. It's just another "platform" for Microsoft's applications, more and more of which are cloud-based anyway. In another update or two, it'll be indistinguishable from Chrome-OS on a Google ChromeBook.
Oh well, sic transit.