WaasMedic Agent Exe stopping me from working

JesselynYaeger,

>>Is there a way for it to just... not...? I built this computer myself only a year ago and would like to be able to use it without having to plan startup an hour out.<<

My routine:

1. Power up computer system (monitor, external RAID 5 SATA array and CPU).
2. Mix up protein powder drink, use it to take daily supplements (a small handful of pills, capsules etc.)
3. Assemble cold cereal breakfast (five ingredients including the milk).
4. Check if login screen is showing.  If so, login.
5. Eat breakfast.
6. Check if desktop is visible.  If so, try to open task manager to see if it is ready for human  interaction. If not....
7. Make a flat white or medium Americano with steamed milk from scratch (grind beans, tamp into portafilter, brew into cup, steam milk, add to coffee...)
8. Check if desktop is ready for human interaction.  If not, find another 10 - 20  minute chore to do.
9. Repeat previous step until UI response to mouse click is under 10 seconds.

My usual, non-WaasMedic boot time-to-usable is about 13 minutes.  I have many of the programs that enter themselves into the startup queue (see Task Manager, Startup tab) disabled.  Most of the "normal" delay is due to McAfee security processess and Acronis backup and ransomware scan processes.  If I use "msconfig" to turn off all non-MS services at startup and disable all startup routines from Task Manager, or do a minimal safe boot, the time drops to about 8 minutes.  Most of these times it is various MS (mostly "System PID 4) routines accessing all  kinds of files, most of which ARE NOT OPERATING SYSTEM FILES.  I my case I have over 10,000 image files (I'm into photography at the moment...) and MS seems keenly interested in looking at these files almost every day using some routine or another.

A normal WaasMedic day goes between 40 and 75 minutes before the machine  is usable.  I have turned off all indexing, disabled all the "Application Experience" tasks from Task Scheduler (although the PcaPatchDbTask re-enables itself every boot-up and schedules itself to run ever 12 hrs.), but these seem to have little impact on boot time and the 100% disk utilization time and the > 10 MB/s non-stop disk I/O to the system drive after boot. 

As best as I can tell with the monitoring tools I have (which I usually can't get started until well after the desktop appears) MS routines of one sort or another are snooping through all the files on the computer NOT JUST OS FILES, and sending the info back to MS.  Since many users got wise to "Compattelrunner.exe" and have used various ways to turn it off, I believe MS has taken its job, expanded it, and embedded its functions into other modules in a redundant way so that no matter what steps the user takes, MS is going to created not only an inventory of your hard drive contents, but also statistics for your usage of each file on your system.  

It is MS obsessive need to hoover up all your system content and usage data for NON-MICROSOFT APPLICATIONS AND FILES, and to override / work around any user attempt to prevent MS from doing so that is bogging down Windows systems.  Also the addition of "smoke and mirrors" privacy settings to make you think you have control over what MS hoovers from your system add bulk and complexity that slow the system down solely for the purpose of using complication to deprive you of actual control of your privacy wishes.

I believe that is the reason MS is all crickets on this issue.  An MS representative even admitted to me that the "public assumption" that WaasMedic is a Windows Update repair tool is not correct despite the fact that it is described as such in it's various properties panels.  So this is all part of the MS clandestine data mining effort that will only get larger and more intrusive as the OS developes.  Long boot up times will get longer and the only real relief is to upgrade to SSD system drives and live with the assumption that MS knows every file on your system, how often, when and from what UI / application you access any given file.  I'm sure that if they think they can get away with it, they will utilize some form of screen image capture and key-logging to add yet more data to your "profile" to suite their pursuit of profit.  Basically, we are f#$%^d.

Have you actually read this thread? You should do that before trying to give "advice".

"scheduled to run every seven days" ?

It runs at EVERY BOOT !

I even tried rebooting AFTER it had stopped running (after over an hour) and it immediately started running again for at least an hour!

Please Microsoft, make my computer usable again !

While this isn't any kind of permanent fix, I found a way to stop the waasmedic process from "taking over" my computer. Just  shut down the Java Update Checker process in task manager, if you have that process running. To my amazement, the waasmedic process immediately stopped running after 25 minutes of continually hogging all my system resources at 90-98% disc capacity. It did not start running again, after a good 1 hour now of performing tasks on my computer.

So for anyone looking for a quick way to stop waasmedic without shutting that particular process down, just stop the Java Update Checker process. Will look into this thread later after the monthly Win cumulative update has been done.