What's going on with WIndows?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bill H
  • Start date Start date
B

Bill H

Wednesday, got panic phone calls at home as some of my secretaries could do
nothing after starting and logging on with their XP Pro systems (Dells) Same
thing with different systems today. I was told Tuesday was "Update Tuesday"
but some of these systems are taking around 1/2 hour before they are usable.
Compound this with people thinking they are locked up and doing a power off
reset. The systems give no indication that anything is wrong, they just will
take forever to do the simplest task, like open Outlook. Do I need to shut
Automatic Updates off entirely?
Thanks
Bill
 
Bill H said:
Wednesday, got panic phone calls at home as some of my secretaries could
do nothing after starting and logging on with their XP Pro systems (Dells)
Same thing with different systems today. I was told Tuesday was "Update
Tuesday" but some of these systems are taking around 1/2 hour before they
are usable. Compound this with people thinking they are locked up and
doing a power off reset. The systems give no indication that anything is
wrong, they just will take forever to do the simplest task, like open
Outlook. Do I need to shut Automatic Updates off entirely?
Thanks
Bill
Click to expand...
On update Tuesday, tell everyone to leave their computers running all night.
Then tell the computer to install the updates at night.

Or, you could change the update to Notify only. Then, you could install the
updates manually.

There aren't very many updates that are so essential that they need to be
installed ASAP. So, you could just wait until Wednesday. Besides, the MS
servers are not so busy then.

Jim
 
Hi Bill:

To get help in these newsgroups you need to state a specific problem
with details. There must be dozens of reasons why a computer might take
half an hour to become usable. The better you are able to describe a
problem, the better chance you stand of finding an answer.
 
Bill H said:
Wednesday, got panic phone calls at home as some of my secretaries could do
nothing after starting and logging on with their XP Pro systems (Dells) Same
thing with different systems today. I was told Tuesday was "Update Tuesday"
but some of these systems are taking around 1/2 hour before they are usable.
Compound this with people thinking they are locked up and doing a power off
reset. The systems give no indication that anything is wrong, they just will
take forever to do the simplest task, like open Outlook. Do I need to shut
Automatic Updates off entirely?
Thanks
Bill
Click to expand...


Hi Bill, try these steps of cleaning, if the system clean, then try to
perform system Restore before the Updates took place and then try to be
selective in your Updates or tell us what these updates are my we can pin
point the cause.

1... Click start >> Control Panel >> Double Click Network and Internet
Connections >> Double click Internet Options, on the IE Properties window
you will see these Options:
General | Security | Privacy | Content | Connections | Programs
| Advanced .

Click on General Tab (1st Tab on the left) and you will see a Button called
[ Clear History ..] click on it to clear your History caches, then click on
[Delete Files..] to delete Internet Files created over the time, click on [
Delete Cookies...] to delete your cookies left by visiting websites.

= Then try to Disable the Add-Ons on your Browser somehow installed on your
browser, On how to disable the Add-ons follow this:
Click on Programs Tab and then click the Manage Add-Ons Button there Disable
the None/Not Verified Plug-ins/Add-ons ( you need to Renable them one-by-one
later and see which is the culprit or you can send them here in your next
post) and click [OK] to confirm your Changes.

Click on Advanced Tab and scroll down under the browsing option and uncheck
this box:
[&] Browsing
[ ] Enable Third-Party browser extensions (Req Rest) and click Apply
then OK to close your IE Properties.

2.... And also for malwares from here:
http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad-aware_se_personal.php
http://www.safer-networking.org ; for Spybot S&D

Open Event Viewer and look for error messages(X) and double click them to
get more info about the causer , you can copy and paste in your next post.
HTH.
nass
 
Well, I thought I was stating a specific problem. On systems where Automatic
Updates is activated, the user gets no notification whatsoever, their
systems just do nothing. Thinking they are locked up, they sometimes force a
power off re-boot which compounds the problem.
Yesterday, we had an Attorney and his secretary come in one hour early to
make a filing deadline. Imagine their frustration when her system refused to
do anything for 30 minutes while it was installing updates while giving no
indication this was happening. The only way a giant, expensive problem was
avoided was her using another system that had been left on all night
(Contrary to firm policy). Is the answer disabling Automatic Updates on 50
Windows XP systems?
 
Bill H said:
Well, I thought I was stating a specific problem. On systems where
Automatic Updates is activated, the user gets no notification whatsoever,
their systems just do nothing. Thinking they are locked up, they sometimes
force a power off re-boot which compounds the problem.
Yesterday, we had an Attorney and his secretary come in one hour early to
make a filing deadline. Imagine their frustration when her system refused
to do anything for 30 minutes while it was installing updates while
giving no indication this was happening. The only way a giant, expensive
problem was avoided was her using another system that had been left on all
night (Contrary to firm policy). Is the answer disabling Automatic Updates
on 50 Windows XP systems?
Click to expand...
I certainly would. You can always find a convenient time to install
updates.
Jim
 
One thing I have noticed; This situation (the appearance of a total lockup)
has occurred on 6 systems so far. In every case processor usage is pegged at
100%. If there was a way that this could be changed to maybe, 75% maximum,
at least the system would be able to function. How I found this was
starting the system and bringing up Task Manager - Performance - right
away. These systems are also running Symantec A/V Corporate, which also does
a virus sig update.

Also, Thanks for letting me vent. We all knows what runs down hill, and
around here, I am the bottom of the hill ;>)
Bill
 
I think we all have missed an important point in Bill's question: how to
coordinate the automatic updates across PCs. That sounds more a question of
the windows server section of these newsgroups.

I too find too obtrusive the default automatic update CPU's usage. If the
update is not critical (as someone mentioned before) why not let the thread
scheduler (POSIX?) give it a lower priority?
 
If the update is not critical, Automatic Updates does not get it.
You need to go in an get the recommended and other updates.
 
I encountered this situation on a friend's computer today [XP pro/sp2;
Athlon 1GHz+1GBram]. 97+" percent CPU utilization by the Auto-Update service.
Or, you could change the update to Notify only. Then, you could install the
updates manually.
Click to expand...

I killed Auto-Up, then set it to disabled in services. I started to post a
Q in one of these fora, then in mid-post decided to enable "Notify-only"
mode. Before I could finish the forum post the system hung and I had to hit
the reset button.

That "Notify-only" mode had induced the same service start-up [I presume,
since I could never get control to view the current processes].
 
I found your first post adequately clear and MORE satisfying than the second
one! :)

While folks seem to be asserting that an update IS BEING PERFORMED, I'm
skeptical: the disk-activity light on my friend's hung system wasn't showing
any more than idle-activity. That system is usually left up "all the time",
so any overnight installation should have been completed already. [He HAD
re-booted before my arrival because the system was comatose to keyboard
entries.]

I expected s/w updates to be largely i/o centered, but it's unusual to have
an i/o oriented processing consuming 97% of CPU as there's usually a disk
bottleneck.

Perhaps there's a race condition or coding error involved. I couldn't even
find out how to identify what updates were in the queue.

I'm impressed that so many people have identified [as I painfully learned to
do] that it was the Auto-Update service causing it! The task-manager should
display more useful information than just svchost.exe or service.exe [IIRC].

Lastly, I'm puzzled that my other systems did NOT hang.
 
Symantec?! My friend's locked up computer was running that too! And -my-
untroubled computers were NOT running Sym' stuff [which I came to loathe,
perhaps unfairly, years ago].

The Symantec processes were NOT shown consuming CPU on his system. In my
UNIX days I did see a case where major CPU usage was not logged as it wasn't
running at the sampling clock ticks, but it's hard to see why that would
happen here.

:
....
 
Potentially useful advice is given towards the end of the following thread
(about my problem). I won't have a chance to test it for two days.
 
Thanks for this link. It seems that simply setting Automatic Updates to
notify only does not work. Still have assorted systems that refuse to let
the operators do anything with them. Here's what happens:
Login, Desktop loads. User clicks "Outlook" (03) get hour glass for a few
seconds, then normal cursor returns. Outlook does not load. After from one
to four minutes, user thinks system is locked up, does the ctrl-alt-del,
clicks on Task Manager. Task Manager refuses to load. User attempts to shut
down system. This also hangs. User holds down power button until system
shuts off manually. Restarts system. At some point here, I get called. IF I
can get Task Manager to load, it shows processor usage at 100%. Attempting
to bring up "Automatic Updates" in control panel also does not work.
To get around this, I had to disconnect the Network cable, start the system,
go to Control Panel and turn off Automatic Updates. Everything then returns
to normal. The only thing I can figure is Symantec is trying to update virus
signatures at the same time Windows it trying to download and install
updates. Of course this is all lost as far as the user is concerned. All
they know is there system is not working and it's up to me to fix it. Really
frustrating!!!!
Thanks
Bill
 
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