I've been experiencing this since January, googling doesn't help, nor do any of the solutions, Ubuntu doesn't do this... :o(

The update itself triggered at the same time as Norton tried to update itself at the same time that I was using my laptop to take important notes. SVCHOST ate my memory and CPU. The PC froze up and I missed picking up important information - my PC was unusuable.

It was the last act that Norton ever did before being uninstalled forever but I did suspect that Windows Update itself had a hand in matters. Although I'm about to put Kaspersky on instead I am wondering if my PC would perform better and become a useful tool again if riddled with Trojans and security holes compared to the clean unresponsive system it is now.

Many software utility companies (Microsoft included) have forgotten why we wpent hundreds of pounds buying these things in the first place.

This originally cropped up around Oct 06.

My machine was hit, and it took me about 4 months

to find that it was an office problem. None of the MS patches done me anygood. However running through

Office Update resolved the issue.

Ran into this the other day and disable windows updates until a patch comes out. I have been using the hotfix to solve another seemingly unrelated issue with windows though... I've had problems with computers (all of our HP NC6320's, but two desktops also) having issues with the networking. Randomly they would just refuse to acknowledge our mapped drives or other local network resources, but would browse the web and e-mail fine. Applied the hotfix and all was fixed.

There appear to be multiple bugs in Windows Update even this long after its release.

we noticed it on all our PCs at work after the monthly update two months ago, and its gotten worse after each successive set of updates. The svchost function has featured in all of this.

Pentium 3s running XP and Office 2003 with all the patches are now so slow, we have had to stop other functions, and IE is crashing whenever we open more than a few tabs at a time on 2.8GHz machines. Its brought our hardware replacement programe plans forward quite considerably, and we haven't even contemplated the effects of upgrading to Vista!

...co-worker came up with this nugget to "reset" Automatic Updates. Create a new text file, drop in the following commands, save & rename the file to [whatever].CMD and run...

net stop bits

net stop wuauserv

regsvr32 /u wuaueng.dll /s

del /f /s /q %windir%\SoftwareDistribution\*.*

del /f /s /q %windir%\windowsupdate.log

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\atl.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\jscript.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\msxml3.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\softpub.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wuapi.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wuaueng.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wuaueng1.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wucltui.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wups.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wuweb.dll

net start bits

net start wuauserv

wuauclt.exe /resetauthorization /detectnow

This problem has been around a lot longer than reported. I don't run XP anymore, but when I did, I did manage to find a good solution.

If you go to the Microsoft Updates site, click into the Options and set the update back to just Windows Update, it should sort the svchost.exe problem.

Again, not new: I've had progressively more customers running fowl of this since November when it first cropped up. The number of problems caused has exploded this week, though.

Come on, Microsoft - this isn't exactly getting people to tun on automatic updates.

This is the best workaround I've found: Has fixed the issue for everyone so far....

1) Manually save then install Windows Update V7: http://download.windowsupdate.com/v7/windowsupdate/redist/standalone/WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe

2) Install Hotfix referenced in KB927891

3) Open Microsoft Update, click change settings, and switch back to Windows update

4) Until this issue has been confirmed resolved, do not upgrade PC's to Microsoft Update. If necessary, go back to using Windows Update and Office Update seperatly.

A theory on why Microsoft is keeping this quiet: Some people think it's caused by "Genuine Advantage" checks. I hope for their sake, it isn't......

I've seen this on numerous systems to more or less extent. It hits single core systems particularly hard because it drives up CPU usage to 100% the moment Windows Update starts checking to see if you need any updates. On one laptop, I had to reboot in Safe mode with the network cables unplugged to manage to get into Control Panel and turn off Automatic updates completely - after that; all was good.

Overtime, I guess as the number of available updates increases, the auto update feature seems to be getting slower and slower. I manually ran an update on another single core laptop the other day and it took well over 30mins @ 1.8Ghz just to figure out what I needed.

The effect is definitely less noticable on dual core desktops - but it's still painful.

sc config wuauserv type= own

run that command and it will move Windows Update into its own instance of svchost so when it does crash, and crash it will, it only takes itself down.

Same here... I found that the quickest way to gain control back on my laptop is to do this:

Run->cmd

net stop winmgmt

net start winmgmt

If you ask me, this looks a little too suspiciously like a typical micro$haft attempt at forcing people to upgrade their computers/OS to the latest incarnation - They probalby didn't unleash this particular one on purpose but given the time it's been out there it's clearly not been their #1 priority to fix it...

We updated to the WSUS 3.0 client and the problem went away.

WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe

It was a little hard to find but worth the search.

This is just Microsoft's gentle reminder that you really should be upgrading to Vista/Office2007. So get with the program!

I had the same problem last year caused by Windows Live Messenger installs.

Two clients, identical problem and the only way I found to get around that one was to re-install. Interesting point though, in these particular cases on machines with more than one account, only the account that installed the Live Messenger was affected.

This happened to me last week.

I solved it by stopping the update service, deleting the "%windir%\SoftwareDistribution" directory, then restarting the service.

Re-registering DLLs was apparently not necessary in my case.

Information: http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsOneCare/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1576457&SiteID=2

Apparently the problem is with Microsoft Update (not Windows Update -- they're different). On machines that have the slowdown, restart, log in, open task manager immediately, then kill svchost.exe when it goes insane (so you can actually use the machine...). Then go into Windows Update, select "Change Settings", check the box to disable Microsoft Update, save settings, confirm, and restart. This process sorted things out for my workstations.

I did have one workstation where Microsoft Update was only "sort of" removed, which caused mapped network drives to show as disconnected and be labelled as such, but still be accessible, and causing all manner of network access headaches. Reinstalling the Microsoft Updates activex control, then re-removing it resolved the residual issue for that workstation.

Good luck!

Well, Now my Win XP install uses about 60% of one processor when it's idling. OS X. . . 4% of one processor.

Silly me DL's the update on four computers. One at work (1.8 MHz Pent5 1GB RAM) and three at home - (Celery 1.4 MHz / 758 MB RAM, 2.2 GHz AMD 3400+ / 1.5 GB RAM, 2.0 GHz AMD 3000+) and all four machines basically locked up for five minutes plus. That is ridiculous. What makes it even more disgusting is that none of the security utilities from Norton or McAfee will ignore turning off autoupdates. So, I get nagged to death because I want to decide when to download and decide. And yes, you can set the schedule, but how the blazes does one know what one will be doing at some time in the future? Only fool leaves his PC on 24x7.

The first reports that I saw of anything were from September 06, when people complained of a bug that MS apparently admitted to having in MS Update. This was when a run of Microsoft Update took 5 minutes to check for updates. Since then I have observed it take over an hour.

The really terrible thing is that, even while Automatic Updates runs in the background, it runs at a normal priority. That means that for the 45 minutes or so that it checks for updates /every day/ (Windows won't let you set the update check interval longer than 22 or so hours) it will render any machine slower than a 2ghz P4 (or so) almost unuseable.

The suggestions to revert to Windows Update are right, but then you totally lose the ability to get Office updates at all, as the Office update site just gives you a link to Microsoft Update.

In addition, I have observed that Automatic Updates will try to run at the same time as a manual update, which causes the manual update to quit halfway through, since Automatic is already installing the same update, and then causes Automatic Update to stop with a vague error some time later. At this point is is safe to run manual update again to get the updates. That process has taken me upwards of 90 minutes on a 2.4 GHz P4 w/ 1GB of ram.

My theory is that MS intentionally did this (thus the slow but dramatic increase in time required to scan for updates... if they just jumped from 30 seconds to 45 minutes a lot more people would have noticed) to get people to upgrade to Vista. In case anyone is wondering, it takes Vista about 10 seconds to do the same thing.

That said, I would also like to suggest that all of Windows ME was a ruse to get people to be more willing to switch to XP when it came out. Theres just no way so many problems could crop up in an OS that was essentially just Windows 98 + 3 features.

- Nexox

Thanks to a online friend I got to your very helpful web site. I downloaded the Windows XP (927891) package but have No relief so far from the problem...still 100% CPU usage. Any other suggestion? I appreciate any help

Thanks in advance

Gee

1. Disable junk services (Even conservatively ... compare Automatic services on XP and 2003 Server, and you'll see what I am talking about.)

2. Clean startup.

3. Don't use IE. Opera is the best (even on my MacBook :)).

4. Use perimeter firewall and updated antivirus.

5. Use WSUS, and always approve updates after making sure that there is no bad feedback after at least a week of release. The same goes for home/small network users with no WSUS - use manual updates via web, and keep update and background transfer services disabled the rest of the time.

Cheers!

For 4 days I had to unblock my PC by going to Task Manager, double clicking on CPU, identifying the spvhost tyhat bloched 98% of CPU, neutralize it,

On May 14 as soon as I switched on PC, a major MSoft update was updated and the machine restarted, after which the bug had disappeared - but no explanation, nor apology was given.

"By James Carter:

This is just Microsoft's gentle reminder that you really should be upgrading to Vista/Office2007. So get with the program!"

If only it wasn't affecting my Vista machine with Office 2007 installed....

So far it seems that ticking 'Don't auto update' + splitting ot the integrated office updates has fixed this bug but now when I try and manually update it returns error 80244028 and fails.... I was really getting along with Vista up to this point.

I'm a volunteer at a charitable organisation, and as such, hardware upgrades in must be strictly warranted on an individual basis. Last patch Wednesday half of our stock, about ten machines, all of them P3's with 256 Meg of RAM found themselves stuffed, svchost chewing up all processor time and RAM.

Simply writing off anything that isn't a Pentium 4 with a couple of gigs of RAM isn't acceptable. Whilst I appreciate that this getting close to a minimum practical spec, suggestions that we thow away these systems are just not going to cut the mustard.

In our case disabling the update agent did the trick. In any event, in my opinion updates should be quarantined prior to installation. After all, if their is a problem, let someone else take the pain, or at least, a test PC if there is one available.

Microsofts failure to recognise that the problem even exists must surely be affecting some of their governmental customers, as some of these operate under the same constraints on resources we do...... Nice one Redmond, what a good advert for upgrading to Vista. If we can't run XP, how the heck are we going to run Vista.

Utterly unacceptable.

PCs have gotten so powerful that a basic model is capable of supercomputer feats compared to the high-end machines of ten years ago. Given that the computational costs of running things like Office should be roughly what they were 10 years ago, it's no surprise to see that people aren't exactly upgrading their hardware in droves. This is what Microsoft is gambling on, since people aren't exactly queueing up to buy Vista off the shelf (and those that have, I hear, have really regretted it. One guy I know also went as far to say that the copy of Office 2007 on his laptop was one he was really glad he hadn't paid for, and that he would be going back to 2003).

Doesn't bode well for Microsoft.

I know people running 300MHz Celeron systems with Windows 98, IE 5.5 and Office 97 on, and they have absolutely no intention of upgrading. Sooner or later, the PC upgrade drive will run out of steam - only gamers and power users will upgrade regularly. Microsoft's mistake is in thinking we're all gamers or content users - many PC users I know couldn't give a stuff about the ability to play back DVD or video content on their PC. That's what the DVD player downstairs is for, innit?

I am personally a power user, and I have been so satisfied with the Intel hardware of yesteryear (I'm running a 3.2GHz Northwood and 2.4GHz Northwood, both still on AGP graphics and with Windows XP / Solaris x86 on 2GB of memory), that I have absolutely no intention of upgrading until about a year after Nehalem debuts and DDR3 has dropped its latencies to something acceptable (and the speed has gone to 2000MHz). I've held off upgrading for three years, and I can easily manage another three years on the same hardware. If Microsoft wants to make XP slow, I can simply reinstall SP2 from the CD and never install network drivers - so I'd be immune from attack. I could then use my other (Solaris x86) box for internet access ... problem solved!

If I had just one PC at my disposal however, I'd be buying myself a copy of VMWare and running Windows XP stuff under the Penguin - probably one more reason Microsoft is really scared of both...

Oliver.

1. Kill the svchost.exe running at high cpu in Task Manager

2. Get this from Microsoft: WindowsUpdateAgent20-x86.exe

3. Run it and reboot.

I've been experiencing this issue with WSUS for over a year, it got so bad I turned WSUS off on the school network but was faced with turning it back on again after P.C's fell behind on updates. I am now faced with temporary fixes like renaming the software distro folder to .old. Upgrading to WSUS 3.0 and applying WindowsXP-KB927891-v3-x86-ENU.exe has not resolved the issue.

I had this issue of svchost.exe running mad but I took my system back to a basic image (basically a new install of XP SP2 which I had imaged using Acronis so didnt have to waste time installing XP and then the drivers and then office and then etc etc) and then updated with all the latest updates from the Microsoft Update site. I even installed the Microsot Update someone talks about not doing earlier. The only programs I havent upgraded are IE to version 7 (still on 6.0) and Windows Media Player to version 11 (Nokia reasons on WMP, still on 10) as I am a software developer who has to keep programs a little older than Microsoft likes, and since doing so, have had no problems with svchost.

It should be noted that originally, before the re-image, I had every update possible, IE7, WMP11, everything that was going and my svchost was going nuts.

A few of our IT staff spent an hour and a half with Bangladesh only to have them insist that we re-register a bunch of DLL's, then *rename* them. Not wanting to second guess people who are supposed to be experts in their own software, we deployed their fix. Windows Update broke entirely on the machines we pushed the fix to. Lovely.

So, I wrote an NSIS script that would undo the MS blunder where appropriate, then apply the steps in the correct sequence and apply hotfix 927891. If you're interested in leeching my code, I've pasted it at http://paste.biz/paste-2188.html -- feel free to salt to taste and abuse as needed.

On every machine where I've encountered svchost.exe errors I have been able to permanently fix the problem by simply disabling hyperthreading and/or smp. No registering dll's or deleting directories. Biggest problem is machines where smp can't be disabled in bios, though removing the second processor will work.

This does impact performance obviously, but updates proceed normally and the error does not occur again. I have fixed 5 machines to date, and have never had to revisit them, going back about 6 months.

I understand that MS has released a fix for this, but in order for it to be installed via the normal update procedure you may find that this fix still helps, as you only need to visit bios before the update, and then after, assuming the fix works, re-enable hyperthreading/smp. Otherwise you'd need to install the patch manually.

I haven't had an opportunity to test the patch yet, but will install it later today, then wait for normal updates and see what happens!