Skype 4.1 buggy, slow, or freezes in Windows 7 64-bit (x64)

I upgraded from Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Home Premium.  Right away I had some CPU issues (high CPU usage around 85%-90% without a corresponding item in taskmgr, even with "Show processes from all users" checked).  Some of these I believe were driver related.  And then one was because of Skype 4.1.  It turns out that even though Skype 4.1 is now officially Windows 7 certified, it's extremely buggy in 64-bit versions of Windows 7, even though I'm running in 32-bit compatibility mode.  Not only did it cause some issues for Windows 7, but Skype itself didn't work right.  Sometimes the Skype app would freeze without warning.  I was able to call someone using SkypeOut, but they could not hear me.  It also locked out my audio options such as "Playback Devices" and "Recording Devices", and possibly even the RealTek HD Audio Manager tool.

Here's a way to make Skype run smoothly, by changing the compatibility run mode to Windows Vista SP2.  To do this, find Skype in the Programs list, right-click it and bring up Properties.  Then change the compatibility mode setting to "Windows Vista (Service Pack 2)", as shown in the screenshot.  Then restart Skype and it should work fine.



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