WaasMedic Agent Exe stopping me from working

For me the problem of 100% "Active Time" (Task Manager, Performance tab) has always existed as long as I can remember on Windows 10.  My initial investigations seem to indicate it was mostly McAfee I/O and indexing. 

What was new starting in January, was that the RATE of disk I/O in Resource Manager also started showing a constant 10 MB/s or higher for long periods of time EVERY DAY.  That disk I/O RATE appeared to be due to WaasMedic and was preventing me from getting a usable response to UI input (i.e. greater than 10 - 30 secs for a mouse click or > 10 - 15 sec for a keystroke response) for between 20 minutes to 75 minutes after pressing the power button.  This situation was unaffected by turning off indexing, and only mildly improved by turning on fast startup.

It is difficult to say exactly what is going on because when the disk I/O is so heavy that UI inputs are futile, invoking task manager with CTRL-ALT-DEL ('cause it is impossible from the desktop) can take up to 2 mins for the task manager window to appear, another 2 - 3 minuted got the window to fill in with information and allow me to access the performance tab.  Clicking "Open Resource Manager" takes another 2 - 3 mins for the Resource Manger UI to appear and sometimes another 2 - 5 mins before the UI fills in with processes and the graphs start filling in.  In the disk tab, "Processes with Disk Activity" pane WaasMedic is at the top of the list (sorted by "Total (B/sec)" column) and its IO sometimes clips with the max graph point at 10 MB/sec.  Looking down at the "Disk Activity" pane, there are usually multiple instances of WaasMedic running all referencing different files.  My guess is that since I am running dual 9-core CPUs I have 16 threads of WaasMedic running, at least that is how it appears.

With the disk activity entries jumping around all over the place and different instances changing position as top IO user, it is hard to bet a read on which files each instance of WaasMedic is accessing but it appears most of them are looking at master boot records and block tables.  This got me thinking back to the the fact that this problem seemed to have started shortly after the "optional" Flash removal update auto-installed.  Also of note was that this "update" COULD NOT be uninstalled / rolled back.  So, just as with SECDRV, I believe all this activity is a willful Microsoft strategy to MAKE SURE no one finds a way to re-install Flash or undo the update to the kernel that prevents Flash from being re-installed / run ever again.

So I believe if MS quit being so dictatorial about what legacy apps it will and won't let you run (usually tied to MS trying to force you to an MS alternative) this problem would be resolved.

I have been having this issue of 100% disc for about 6 months - I have Dell Pro Support. In the end, they sent me a new Laptop to replace the other laptop I bought 6 months prior.  The new laptop starting doing the same thing - 100% disc, but also the computer was having random critical errors saying loss of power or crash (Kernal error 41 Cat 63).  My routine was to put the computer to sleep and then when I would come back and open the lid, and check the event viewer, there would be the Critical error showing up that something happened while it was asleep.  We went through every troubleshooting option we could, different techs, check disc, etc. Turning off fast start up in power options, resetting power plan, disabling superfetch, updating Bios and drivers, etc... You name it, we did it.  So they just replaced the motherboard and same issue.  It would hang at 100% disc for 15 minutes or longer when starting the computer. 

After a little research on my own, searching WaasMedic Agent Exe and found that Dell Support assist could be the culprit. It showed as WaasMedic on the processes tab of the Task Manager, but on the Details tab, the disc hog was DSAPI.exe.  Googled that and it was in fact reported to be Dell Support Assist.  I went to the control panel, programs, and uninstalled Dell Support Assist.  (I still have Dell Command Update) which works fine.  After uninstalling, the 100% usage immediately stopped.  I restarted the system multiple times to see if it has resolved on restart and it did.  No more 100% disc.

I then went back in and re-enabled the Fast start up in the power plan and restarted and still resolved with no 100% disc.

I also checked the event viewer after all this and sure enough, the Critical error (Kernal 41 was created at the time that Dell Support Assist was at 100% disc, along with another error (Windows Remediation of some sort).   

Dell support assist can easily be reinstalled if I were to need it temporarily so I'm leaving it off.

I also found this article when trying to figure out why I was missing power options in my plan.  https://superuser.com/questions/1536904/windows-10-power-options-missing-on-new-laptop

Turns out the new systems use something called connected standby so processes continue to run when your computer is asleep.  These reg edits described might solve not only something happening when the computer is asleep, but look to also provide a way to return all my missing power options.

And another reason why MaaSMedic can be running for a long time is because the user disabled some Window Services, And MaaSMedic is using resouses to E nable remediation and protection of Windows Update components.

Are if you are trying Downloading A Windows Update

It is not uncommon for Windows update to fail to install all the necessary files. If that happens, the OS provides an error message (for example, We couldn't connect to the update service, 0x80242016, or 0x80070020) or simply attempts to re-downloaded it later. Due to these errors and attempts to re-download, the Windows Update Medic service might use many resources.

@01101000 etc....Seriously please read the thread before attempting to post an "answer". You're not understanding the problem therefore can not provide an answer. This problem is about WaasMedic running for long periods at high disk usage and for some people more often than the scheduled run. This is not about updates.