wuaudt.exe is really bogging down my computer

Anonymous

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?

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.

0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

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!

0 comments

Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

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

0 comments

163 additional answers

Anonymous

2010-08-16T17:27:13+00:00

It is not a fix to disable Microsoft Update. And there is no reason to start throwing dirt at each other.

Maybe this problem is not affecting every XP SP3 user, but those affected - myself included - really are hurting. For the past month or so my PC is doing Microsoft Update for at least 40 min. a day. Typically WU-agent schedules itself every (approx.) 21 hour !!?? Besides, when MSE finds an update - which it does daily - it triggers the WU-agent. When MSE and the WU-agent both decide to update at the same time - I am out for at least a hour! That is a real problem. Symptoms are as described in this thread and other. It seems as if memory is overloaded. I believe paging is the true performance problem.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2010-08-16T17:34:48+00:00

Not all users are seeing this behaviour because Microsoft Updates are not a default Automatic Update.

There's a lot of threads on this now and in every one you have been very agressive about your approach which is not exactly helping.

Please tell us how much memory is used by your machine when searching for Microsoft updates compared to just Windows Updates.
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments
Anonymous

2010-08-17T05:46:16+00:00

Thanks for your help above. At this point I've just turned off automatic updates in the security centre on the pc and that has stopped it. I will just manually search for updates weekly. I have to with some of my minis at work so will just put it on my schedule for home as well.

thanks
Was this answer helpful?

0 comments No comments