Windows Update / SvcHost.exe 100% Cpu in task manager

FWIW there is an idea that I have for a simplified procedure that may work but nobody has tried it yet as a solution that has been clearly described as such two steps so if you would like to be the test subject, we knew the opportunity would arise. 

It involves a two step procedure of navigating to the Windows\inf folder and right clicking the qmgr file that sits next to another file named qmgr.PNF, and this is the inf file for the installer of BITS, so when you right click it in the menu that shows you can click "install" and the process will follow likely you will get a prompt for the Windows CD but you can point the installer back to Windows\system32

for the needed qmgr.dll file. 

Then there is a registry merge to perform and reboot the machine and hopefully ....that's it ...fixed.

But this is not confirmed.   If you want to try it here is where you can find the reg file

See the second post in the thread a post marked Answer made by user triplekek

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-windows_update/bits-appears-corrupt-on-fresh-xp-install/29353b45-7cbc-4320-a42b-33885c46daa8

 triplekek uploaded the ready to use reg file here

http://www1.zippyshare.com/v/69944822/file.html

Should go without saying but also you need the most recent cumulative security update for IE already installed before going to Windows Update.  I think you are already aware of that aspect.  If not then that is where the troubleshooting should begin because it is a known issue.

Presuming Windows XP SP3 with IE8 this is the file you need for December

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=41404

here is a direct download link for the exe

http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/9/A/19A6AC47-9EA0-455F-B918-A44D25B5304C/IE8-WindowsXP-KB2898785-x86-ENU.exe

Here is another thread for reference about the part of the procedure where the inf file is right clicked to access the installer for BITS.  The post of interest is about 6 posts down from a user Morc001

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_xp-windows_update/windows-update-failed-get-error-message-0x80246008/1fd3ce28-62b2-454c-922b-3130e9106328?page=2&msgId=a8467211-d25c-4f09-b91e-8d300aca75a4

Impressive; This is by far the best "DIY-procedure" ever - none aside or above. When there is a likelyhood that the outcome of a step may fail, there is given an alternative step. Awesome!

 

To recover - and start the gone Background Intelligent Transfer Service, I had to follow all the steps, exception made for the last bold one.

 

Getting the Windows Update function up and going again and the CPU resource hog to go away though, I had to follow Keiths advice with regard to the Security Bulletin ms13-097 to install the KB2898785.

 

The culprit materialised all of a sudden on Tuesday 10.th December. In a couple of days I found the Automatic Updates being the problem and disabled it, but I wasn't aware of the the missing BITS until I stumbled across this thread.

 

May Sinterklaas/Father Christmas/Saint Nicholas/Julenissen (he's supposed to live a little north of here) be good to both of you, Xircal and Keith.

 

And thanks to Joseph who raised the issue.

 

Merry Christmas to all of you!

My XP/Pro-SP3 system has been experiencing symptoms that are close to, but not exactly the same as those discussed in this thread.  So, I tried the fix as discussed here.  Unfortunately, the problem(s) has not been resolved, so I wanted to see if I missed any steps that were posted later in the thread.  (I admit that I only browsed the whole 12 pages of replies, so I may have missed any supplemental information after the reply that showed the procedure).

Because the symptom my system has is slightly different than described here, and I also see some other symptoms that showed about the same time as the svchost "max-out", I am wondering if there may be more to the story.  Here's what happened:

Around Dec. 11th, I first noticed sluggishness of the system, and quickly observed that a SYSTEM process called svchost was hogging about 98-99% of the CPU time.  Apparently, Windows Update was trying to run automatically at the time.  In order to regain control of the system, I finally resorted to ending the svchost process tree.  However, svchost re-started shortly after that.  I ended it again, and shortly after got a message listing five updates that failed to install (which is odd because I had selected "download updates only" in regards to automatic Windows Updates, so I'm unsure why it was already attempting to apply the updates).  I then re-tried Windows Update manually, but it would "hang" while searching my system for needed updates (and svchost would eventually would go back to 99% CPU usage).  I then tried the Support link on the Windows Update page, and eventually found the Windows Update Repair app, which I ran.  That app reported that it was unable to repair something about the "Registration" and one other file-related issue, although it claimed to have repaired three other issues.  Re-trying Windows Update produced the same "hang" as before.

Suspecting a possible worm/virus, I used MS Security Essentials to scan the system.  It reported no problems.  Thinking I may have caused a corruption of the update process by ending the process tree, I decided to attempt to restore the system to its latest save point (Dec. 9th).  Restore reported (AFTER the reboot) that it was unable to restore the selected save point, so I tried several earlier save points as far back as early November.  Each time, Restore reported failure AFTER doing the re-boot.

At that point, I followed the MS support link and eventually came across this thread.   I applied the procedure that appears here (finding that I had to apply EVERY step, including those relating to "in the unlikely event that this does not work, then...")   Everything seemed to proceed per the procedure, UNTIL I attempted to download the December IE8 cumulative update.  At that point, IE advised that it was blocking downloads from the (Microsoft) website to "protect the security of your computer".  This seemed odd, but I went ahead and selected the option to download anyway... but the download failed to launch, reporting that the update did not match my version of IE.  Thinking that perhaps my copy of IE8 itself had become corrupted, I downloaded/installed a fresh copy of IE8.  I then started this repair procedure from the beginning (noticing that the service was not working again).  While doing so, it appeared that the service was still registered, but was not finding its file.  Once I reached the step of downloading/installing the IE8 Cumulative Update, I noticed that my IE now had a totally different "look" than before.  (I'm wondering if the browser was actually an earlier version, although it was self-reporting as being IE8).  Again, the brower blocked the download of the Cumulative Update, so I had to allow it to download anyway.  This time, it appeared to run and reported successful completion.

I then tried to run Windows Update, and got the same (non) results as before applying this procedure.  So, I applied the last registry change (relating to FilesNotToBackup), as instructed, and tried again, and still got the same non-result from the Windows Update page (with svchost again taking a lot of the CPU time - although now ranging from "only" about 88% to about 95%).

So... I'm questioning whether I missed some "addendum" to the procedure, or whether there is something else involved in this case, given the somewhat deviant symptoms and effects that I'm seeing, including the inability to do system restores.  Any thoughts?  Especially, were there any addendums to the procedure that I may have overlooked?

TIA...

Good question.  I wish I knew the answer.

 

I'm not sure if each monthly released update iso is a cumulative update or not, all I know is that a new iso issues each month, so all of them may be needed, or just the most recent may be needed and I don't know which it is because I have not used them or looked further into it to see.

 

My impression is that they are NOT cumulative and you have to get them all so it would be an extensive archive that would need to be loaded onto a removable hard drive or a regular data drive for archival use to be accessible.

 

The wsusoffline site I think compiles them in a way that makes them cumulative.  But I haven't used that service either so I can't confirm this.

Hi Keith,

I downloaded one of those once and can give you a positive answer to that question.

Each month's .iso release contains all the security patches released in a given month for all the operating systems listed at the foot of the page you linked to.

So not only do you get all the XP patches, but also the same ones for Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and in both x86 and 64-bit flavors plus Win Server 2003, 2008,. 2012 etc., etc.

No good for peeps like you and me.

Please correct me if I am in error, but the above link to the 2.53GB iso file KB913086 is a collection of all the service packs (SP3) and all the updates as of Dec. 10, 2013.

 

Bob

Hi bob,

Sorry, but that's incorrect.

Each .iso file contains all the updates released in a given month for all the operating systems listed at the foot of the article.

No good to you unless you're a large corporation with multiple operating systems within your organization.