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

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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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  1. Anonymous
    2010-08-17T17:50:14+00:00

    After my initial optimism that deleting the DataStore folder had cured the problem, it's returned. I've resorted to turning off Automatic Updates.

    @seeking_answers: If you need assistance, please begin a new thread aboutyour specific problem and computer(s).  State your IE version and full Windows version (e.g., WinXP SP3; WinXP 64-bit SP2; Vista SP1; Vista 64-bit SP2; Win7; Win7 64-bit) in your first post.  Thank you.

    ========================

    How do I reset Windows Update components?

    => Ignore the APPLIES TO section if Win7; Access KB971058 via Internet Explorer (32-bit) only; Run the Fix It in DEFAULT and then AGGRESSIVE modes then reboot [1]

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971058

    
[1] Full Disclosure: Running the Fix It in AGGRESSIVE mode will delete your Update History but not the list of installed updates in Add/Remove Programs (WinXP) or Installed Updates (Vista & Win7).


* * *

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

    Yeah thanks, but I wrote that before you issued the same instruction last time! See postsAugust 13, 2010 8:48 PM (me) and August 13, 2010 11:39 PM (you).

    Anyhow, I'm of the opinion that it's more confusing to keep track of multiple threads about the same issue as opposed to keeping all the knowledge related to the issue in one thread, so we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-08-17T19:22:02+00:00

    More people are experiencing this problem than you might think. They just don't know how to look for answers or haven't been able to track down the cause of their problem. Personally, I suspect a recent MS update did something. The wuauclt.exe app goes crazy on startup and, if I don't kill it quickly enough, I may get blue-screened. Because it hogs my disk and fights with everything else on startup, it causes disk read errors. Every now and then this app wakes up and hogs all my resources and I have to kill it again. If this app is intended for updates, why does it keep running? It should only run, when the computer is left idle for some length of time and certainly not on startup! The file has the same date stamp and file size as on another isolated computer and my computer does update, so I doubt a virus. If there were some other virus file, what would be the purpose of hijacking the wuauclt.exe file? If this file is for updating, it should only be checking what updates you have, not scanning your entire drive. I have found no other files with the same name on my PC either. I am running XP home on an MSI U100 netbook with 2 GB memory.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-08-17T21:03:50+00:00

    I can verify that the issue is occurring on XP systems with 512 MB of RAM or less that have opted into Microsoft Update. Currently working on such a system that was so unresponsive it behaved as if it were running Windows 95. Still haven't found a way to resolve it that does not involve opting out of Microsoft Update  via the Change settings link in the left pane of the Microsoft Update site.

    If I make any progress on the issue I'll post back ASAP.

    UPDATE: After opting the system back into Microsoft Update here are the readings from Task Manager for I/O Read bytes

    wuauclt.exe shows 374,738,108 Read bytes and rising.

    It's associated svchost.exe shows I/O Read bytes as 5,193,836 and rising rapidly.

    After opting out of Microsoft Update -

    On restart: wuauclt.exe shows 3,873,980 and is steady

    associated svchost.exe shows 4,095,918 and is rising slowly

    After the check for updates was finished -

    wuauclt.exe shows 21,085,372 I/O Read bytes and I/O Read bytes has stopped.

    associated svchost.exe  shows 5,080,723 I/O Read bytes and is rising slowly. It appears to be increasing in increments of 24 and 56 bytes.

    For now the only feasible workaround is opting out of Microsoft Update.

    MowGreen Update Services - Consumer Security

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