wuaudt.exe is really bogging down my computer

Anonymous
2010-08-03T18:57:06+00:00

Recently, when I first start my computer for the day, wuaudt.exe runs and really bogs down my computer.  In Task Manager it shows it is using a lot of memory along with one of the many svchost.exe's that are running.  I had my computer set up to notify me when updates are available.  I have investigated this problem and found about the only thing to do is disable automatic updates altogether.  I have turned off Automatic Updates, unchecked Automatic Updates under the Services tab in msconfig and in services.msc I have set Automatic Updates to manual.  This seems to keep wuaudt.exe from running.  I read in one place that Microsoft issues updates on the first and third Tuesday's of each month so I plan on doing manual updates at those times.  Does anyone know why wuaudt.exe is suddenly such a memory hog? It only seems to be a problem the first time I time turn my computer on (I turn it off when not in use to save electricity).  If I shut it off and restart it later in the day, there is not a performance problem.  I have a Dell Dimension 5100C, Windows XP Pro SP3, 512 MB RAM, Pentium 4 3.00 Ghz processor. 

 I would like to be able to be notified of critical updates when they are issued but I don't want wuaudt.exe running every day if it is going to  bog me down.  Any ideas?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2010-08-22T19:22:13+00:00

Thanks for the info!  I've opted out of Microsoft Updates as you and PA Bear have suggested.  Keeping my fingers crossed that everything works normally tomorrow!

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Anonymous
2010-08-20T19:29:09+00:00

Update: Due primarily to exchanges with several MS MVPS on the behalf of users like you, Microsoft is aware of and has acknowledged the issue:

"We have gotten reports from multiple sources and consider this to be a live service issue and we are investigating it as a Priority 1."


~Robear Dyer (PA Bear) ~ MS MVP (IE, Mail, Security, Windows & Update Services) since 2002 ~ Disclaimer: MS MVPs neither represent nor work for Microsoft

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-06-15T16:59:26+00:00

    Why are you such an A***ole??? Are you so much smarter than everybody on earth??? Oh, look at me, I'm the greatest!!!! All you people with problems are worthless!!!  I hope your smug a** gets put in its place real soon!

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-03-30T05:04:07+00:00

    I'm having a similar problem on my vista computer. Today my computer started lagging a lot, wuadt.exe was the culprit. Strangely enough, it was hogging my CPU. I'm pretty sure that my computer is on its last legs. Recently, I've noticed extreme performance drops, an experienced multiple crashes. I don't have any problems at all when I run Ubuntu off of my flash drive.

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