August 2015 Windows Update for Vista Requires One Hour to Run to Completion

Your observations fit pretty much identically to mine. August updates last year when the problem hit. Svchost running at full whack.......

Bear...

My Vista install (32bit 2Gb RAM) was clean. The install disc was used to take the HDD down to unallocated space. My disc images included a 'just Vista plus SP1 and SP2 + updates to 2013 ' image. It is all broken.

Vista may be close to end of all support but that doesn't mean MS should leave it in a non-functional state. They must know about the issue, and I can only surmise that the reason for not applying a fix at this late stage is simply to drive more sales of W10 equipment. It would be better to end support now (although that would be outside the terms of the lifecycle) and for them to disable WU.

I would like to know if any affected Win 7 or Vista user has found a solution for these "Checking for updates..." hangs that works better than Dalai's temporary workaround...

Here's one: After doing a clean install of Windows, download/run the Norton Removal Tool and/or the McAfee Consumer Removal Tool (depending on which free-trial came OEM-preinstalled on the computer when you bought it) & reboot BEFORE installing your new anti-virus application - including MSE - AND BEFORE attempting to install ANY updates (whether manually or via Windows Update).

Tip => You'll need to upgrade to IE11 (Win7) or IE9 (Vista) manually, too. Win7 users will also need to install the Apr-15 Servicing Stack update and the latest Windows Update Client manually.

Tip => Before creating an image, make sure there are no Norton or McAfee "leftovers" present on the system.

I would also like to know if Microsoft is investigating these slow Windows Updates and whether this problem could be mitigated (or even permanently fixed) if Microsoft released an updated WUA for Vista to improve memory usage on computers with limited amounts of RAM and/or expired outdated updates...

With Extended Support (and updates) for Vista ending on 11 April 2017, I wouldn't hold my breath IIWY.

You may obtain *Microsoft-sponsored* (but not necessarily free) support via the Answer Desk =>
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DISCLAIMER: Posted AS IS with no guarantees. MS MVPs neither represent nor work for Microsoft.

As promised, here's a (very lengthy) summary of what I've learned to date about these "Checking for updates..." hangs.  This problem first appeared on my 32-bit Vista machine during my August 2015 Patch Tuesday updates, and it may or may not be relevant that this was the first Patch Tuesday update after Win 10 was officially released on 29-Jul-2015.  All the symptoms described below have been reported by other affected users in the MS Answers community, VistaForums, bleepingcomputer, etc. and are not unique to my system.

1. These slow Windows Updates only occur on Win 7 and Vista computers.  Mainstream support has ended for Win 7 and Vista and both these OSs are currently in extended support (i.e., no new features, security updates only).
2. Affected users typically see the initial "Checking for updates..." phase of Windows Update (WU) hang for several hours without throwing an error message.  In general, the more updates available for download the longer the hang. On a system that is updated on a regular basis (i.e., not a clean re-install of Vista SP2), Patch Tuesday updates will usually download and install successfully if "Checking for updates..." is left to run for several hours and allowed to run to completion.  Subsequent WUs will run normally once Patch Tuesday updates are applied - until the next month when another large batch of updates is released on the 2nd Tuesday of the month.
3. During the "Checking for updates..." hang, an instance of the svchost.exe process runs constantly and completely saturates one CPU core (i.e., 50% CPU activity on a machine with a dual core processor; 100% with a single core processor).  Process Explorer shows that the Windows Update service (wuauserv) - and specifically a thread for the Windows Update Agent (wuaueng.dll) - accounts for all of that CPU activity.
4. When "Checking for updates..." is initialized, the WindowUpdate.log for a Patch Tuesday update shows Protocol Talker synchronizing the list of updates with the local database on the client computer (+++ PT: Synchronizing extended update info +++) followed by a dozen or so entries where DtaStor handles the database transactions to add URLs for new updates posted since the last Windows Update (e.g., http://download.windowsupdate.com/c/msdownload/update/software/updt/2016/03/windows6.0-kb3147071...). The log then shows a huge gap of several hours (no warnings, no errors) before the next timestamp shows that Agent (the WUA) has finished searching for available updates. This delayed timestamp for Agent corresponds with the time that the "Checking for updates..." phase of WU finally reports that updates are available for download in the WU GUI.
5. Generally speaking, most affected Win 7 and Vista users have older machines with slower CPUs and smaller amounts of RAM.  Microsoft has released a series of updates for the Win 7 Windows Update Agent (wuaueng.dll) to reduce CPU and memory usage during WUs.  For example, KB3050265 (Windows Update Client for Windows 7: June 2015) states "This update addresses an issue in which system performance can be decreased during scans. This issue has the greatest effect on computers that have a small amount of physical memory."  There are no similar patches for the WU client for Vista and the current WUA v7.6.7600.256 for Vista has not been updated since June 2012.
6. In recent months, many affected users have reported that the workaround posted on Dalai's webpage titled Search for Windows Updates takes forever? - A possible solution can reduce "Checking for updates..." from hours to minutes.  This author of this webpage maintains a list of Windows kernel-mode driver (Win32k.sys) updates for both Win 7 SP1 and Vista SP2 that must be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center and pre-installed before you run Windows Update - assuming these updates were not installed during previous Windows Updates.  This workaround was discussed in Woody Leonhard's InfoWorld article Windows 7 update scans taking forever? KB 3153199 may solve the problem and has since been endorsed by other IT professionals like Michael Horowitz (see his ComputerWorld article *The Shame of Windows Update*).  This appears to be a temporary workaround since the slow WUs typically return the next Patch Tuesday, and users must pre-install any new Win32k.sys update added to Dalai's webpage before WU is run again.
7. Three years ago, Win XP users experienced a similar problem after Win 8.1 was released where the Windows Update Agent (WUA), running under svchost.exe, would lock machines with 100% CPU consumption.  Microsoft eventually acknowledged the problem and provided a permanent fix by expiring some of the outdated updates in the supersedence chain for older versions of the IE browser and other Microsoft programs. See Woody Leonhard's old Nov 2013 article Microsoft to fix Windows XP update SVCHOST redline issue 'soon' as well as his recent Apr 2016 article It's time for Microsoft to fix the Windows 7 update slowdowns for more information on supersedence chains.

To conclude, I would like to know if any affected Win 7 or Vista user has found a solution for these "Checking for updates..." hangs that works better than Dalai's temporary workaround outlined in item # 6.

I would also like to know if Microsoft is investigating these slow Windows Updates and whether this problem could be mitigated (or even permanently fixed) if Microsoft released an updated WUA for Vista to improve memory usage on computers with limited amounts of RAM and/or expired outdated updates for long-standing programs like IE and the MS .NET Framework.

32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox v46.0.1 * IE9 * NIS v21.7.0.11 * MBAM Premium v2.2.1

HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS

I can restore known good Vista images I made 12 months + ago and guess what (no surprise), they are broken. WU sits there hour after hour churning away totally hogging all the resources. The system was clean when the images were made, and there are no problems with what was a pretty much perfect Vista installation.

Hi Mooly01:

Thanks for your reply.  That's a very interesting observation, and one more informative piece to the puzzle.

I started this thread nine months ago so I think it would be worthwhile for me to post a summary of what I've learned to date about these slow Windows Updates to get things back on track.  Stay tuned...

32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox v46.0.1 * IE9 * NIS v21.7.0.11 * MBAM Premium v2.2.1

HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS

This is probably not a very helpful post but I believe it needs saying.

I can restore known good Vista images I made 12 months + ago and guess what (no surprise), they are broken. WU sits there hour after hour churning away totally hogging all the resources. The system was clean when the images were made, and there are no problems with what was a pretty much perfect Vista installation.

Although I am now using Ten on both my PC's I'm still annoyed that Vista (that is mine, I bought it) is no longer serviceable. W8.1 that I liked (and bought) ultimately got screwed by the incessant W10 compatability updates. It was a never ending battle. I believe some W7 users are experiencing similar update issues to Vista.