At some point in the recent past some update to the Automatic Updates
components took a turn for the worse, and I *really* wish MS would do
something about it.

I manually visit update.microsoft.com on all my machines on a regular basis
and let it update everything, so all my machines have the latest Automatic
Update components, and they all exhibit more or less the same behavior. All
running XP Pro.

I'll single out the worse machine (out of my half dozen)--a rather plain and
ordinary 2GHz laptop with 512MB RAM: *every* time I turn it on, one
instance of svchost.exe pins the CPU at 100% (always the one instance
hosting the Automatic Updates service, according to Process Explorer) and
remains pinned for a solid 5-10 minutes.

If I shut down the Automatic Updates service, CPU usage immediately drops
back to normal. As I tend to visit the site myself on a regular basis, my
machines are always pretty much up to date already and the automatic checks
at powerup are rather pointless.

Turn off the service however--how dare you, the sky will surely fall--and
you'll get Security Center warning tooltips in your face every 5 minutes.

If I manually go to update.microsoft.com, the scanning phase these days can
go for anywhere between 5 and 20 minutes of high CPU activity. WTH does it
think it needs to do to perform a software check on a clean machine that's
been recently reformatted and has had *nothing* reinstalled other than the
OS itself?

MS needs to look at performance optimization. It used to take *a lot* less
time, even when the machine had tons of crap installed. The more tweaks
they add to the Update components, the worse it's getting.

If it wasn't for the CPU hogging *every* time I boot up the machine, I'd
just let Automatic Updates do its job and let it run in the background--who
cares if it takes half an hour? But half an hour of the machine being
sluggish (especially when the end result is that there are no new updates)
is just unacceptable.



Okay, I'm done ranting.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

You know, I've noticed that Windows Updates are taking much longer as of late
in figuring out just what update you need. I haven't seen it go as long as
you have, but I've noticed an increase in time.

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Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFFYx9zohDvlOzv16wRAkvEAJ9dJyOnbN6qMGUEgmWHXgLItr9YTACfRNYQ
zq8XUzXxN2CMdg+lv2nBW0Q=
=SZCa
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Homer does this suggestion by P.A. Bear in the Windows Update group help?

Try deleting the contents of this folder (or the folder itself) & reboot:

C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\DataStore

If no joy, try deleting the contents of this folder (or the folder itself) &
reboot:

C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE, OE, Security, Shell/User)

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Homer J. Simpson" <root@127.0.0.1> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> At some point in the recent past some update to the Automatic Updates
> components took a turn for the worse, and I *really* wish MS would do
> something about it.
>
> I manually visit update.microsoft.com on all my machines on a regular
> basis and let it update everything, so all my machines have the latest
> Automatic Update components, and they all exhibit more or less the same
> behavior. All running XP Pro.
>
> I'll single out the worse machine (out of my half dozen)--a rather plain
> and ordinary 2GHz laptop with 512MB RAM: *every* time I turn it on, one
> instance of svchost.exe pins the CPU at 100% (always the one instance
> hosting the Automatic Updates service, according to Process Explorer) and
> remains pinned for a solid 5-10 minutes.
>
> If I shut down the Automatic Updates service, CPU usage immediately drops
> back to normal. As I tend to visit the site myself on a regular basis, my
> machines are always pretty much up to date already and the automatic
> checks at powerup are rather pointless.
>
> Turn off the service however--how dare you, the sky will surely fall--and
> you'll get Security Center warning tooltips in your face every 5 minutes.
>
> If I manually go to update.microsoft.com, the scanning phase these days
> can go for anywhere between 5 and 20 minutes of high CPU activity. WTH
> does it think it needs to do to perform a software check on a clean
> machine that's been recently reformatted and has had *nothing* reinstalled
> other than the OS itself?
>
> MS needs to look at performance optimization. It used to take *a lot*
> less time, even when the machine had tons of crap installed. The more
> tweaks they add to the Update components, the worse it's getting.
>
> If it wasn't for the CPU hogging *every* time I boot up the machine, I'd
> just let Automatic Updates do its job and let it run in the
> background--who cares if it takes half an hour? But half an hour of the
> machine being sluggish (especially when the end result is that there are
> no new updates) is just unacceptable.
>
>
>
> Okay, I'm done ranting.
>

Microsoft will get more users using automatic updates at all for whatever
performance when they take automatic installations of IE 7 out of it.
When I heard about all the problems and how they are forcing IE 7 onto
peoples' machines I immediately disabled automatic update, and I will next
update from Microsoft again when they TAKE IE7 OUT OF THEIR AUTOMATIC
UPDATES!

If I wanted a version of Firefox that doesn't even work, first of all, I'd
have Firefox.

--
Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, TX
(E-Mail Removed)
"Homer J. Simpson" <root@127.0.0.1> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> At some point in the recent past some update to the Automatic Updates
> components took a turn for the worse, and I *really* wish MS would do
> something about it.
>
> I manually visit update.microsoft.com on all my machines on a regular
> basis and let it update everything, so all my machines have the latest
> Automatic Update components, and they all exhibit more or less the same
> behavior. All running XP Pro.
>
> I'll single out the worse machine (out of my half dozen)--a rather plain
> and ordinary 2GHz laptop with 512MB RAM: *every* time I turn it on, one
> instance of svchost.exe pins the CPU at 100% (always the one instance
> hosting the Automatic Updates service, according to Process Explorer) and
> remains pinned for a solid 5-10 minutes.
>
> If I shut down the Automatic Updates service, CPU usage immediately drops
> back to normal. As I tend to visit the site myself on a regular basis, my
> machines are always pretty much up to date already and the automatic
> checks at powerup are rather pointless.
>
> Turn off the service however--how dare you, the sky will surely fall--and
> you'll get Security Center warning tooltips in your face every 5 minutes.
>
> If I manually go to update.microsoft.com, the scanning phase these days
> can go for anywhere between 5 and 20 minutes of high CPU activity. WTH
> does it think it needs to do to perform a software check on a clean
> machine that's been recently reformatted and has had *nothing* reinstalled
> other than the OS itself?
>
> MS needs to look at performance optimization. It used to take *a lot*
> less time, even when the machine had tons of crap installed. The more
> tweaks they add to the Update components, the worse it's getting.
>
> If it wasn't for the CPU hogging *every* time I boot up the machine, I'd
> just let Automatic Updates do its job and let it run in the
> background--who cares if it takes half an hour? But half an hour of the
> machine being sluggish (especially when the end result is that there are
> no new updates) is just unacceptable.
>
>
>
> Okay, I'm done ranting.
>

Windows Updates now scans for Office products at the same time as it scans for
Windows products, so the scans take seemingly several times longer than last
Spring.

> Windows Updates now scans for Office products at the same time as it scans
> for
> Windows products, so the scans take seemingly several times longer than
> last
> Spring.

We're talking about pinning a CPU for minutes at a time here...enumerating a
couple of apps shouldn't take that long.

There's also hardly any disk activity going on at that time, so it's not
like it's gotta scour the entire hard drive * all the drives...