I’ve done posts about this before but as a refresher/update, here’s another.

I’ve set up a cloud VPS with Tagadab, now branded as Simply Cloud. I chose the basic settings – 1GB ram, 1 core, 20GB storage – and selected Windows 2019 Server as the operating system, which looks and acts like Windows 10.

It was up and running in around 15 mins so I started adding some apps. I installed Gruss, Dimension4 and ms office. The office install is free to download but only comes with a trial license. You can search the internet for trial keys that supposedly allow you to continue using for free but sounds a bit iffy, especially as you’d have to keep remembering to add them. I used a key i got online for around a tenner, which I’d used on a Windows tablet but no longer needed, and it worked fine on the vps by creating a new ms account on setup.

Within a couple of days I noticed how slowly the VPS was running. I cracked open the task manager and found sdxhelper was using all available ram, keeping it at 100%. Googled it and it’s a known issue. Best solution for me was to end the task and rename the sdxhelper.exe file. Only problem with this is that if I restart the server, Windows helpfully repairs itself and puts a new copy of sdxhelper.exe in the associated folder. A quick rename is the fix though.

Another way to reduce ram usage is to restore down both Gruss and Excel, with the Excel window then stretched down to is smallest size. This works better than minimising the windows, as can be seen when viewing the task manager. I assume this is because on the VPS, the ram is also used for graphics, whereas on my pc/laptop there’s a separate graphics processor.