WaasMedic Agent Exe stopping me from working

Mark Schroeder,

Before I switched to an SSD SYS: drive and moved my "Documents", "Downloads", "Music", "Pictures", and "Videos" folders to the reformatted HD that was formerly my SYS drive, I routinely caught WaasMedic cruising through all the files in those folders. I have years of built-up files in those folders, including over 10,000 high-res (mostly RAW+JPEG pairs) digital camera pictures. So often I had times when it was up to 40 minutes before I could get the system responsive enough to get Task Manager and Resource Monitor opened. And by that time WaasMedic was no longer opening Microslog files - it was reading ALL the files in my user directories!

Since using File Explorer->This PC-><folder> rt-click Properties, Location tab to move these personal content folders to a different physical drive, WaasMedic does not seem to access them. (Whether or not this works if you move them to a new partition/volume on the same physical drive with the SYS: partition, I have not tested and am too lazy to test at this point.)

Regarding the folders you reference, if you rt-click-Properties on the SYS drive in File Explorer, and select "Disk Cleanup" on the General tab, then "Clean up syste files" button, select "Windows Update log files" and "OK", the cleanup process deletes all but the most recent of the folders you have identified. It is possible that if you repeat the process, it will delete the latest folder as well, but I have not tested that.

Also, you can't take the "amd64" label literally I don't believe. Since this designator first came up, I have found files (drivers mostly) for 64-bit Intel use in those directories. There are also sub-dirs in those folders with "wow64_..." names that I think are generic 64-bit files that are independent of CPU architecture concerns. I believe this is a legacy of Microsloth laziness that simply began tossing both hardware dependent and independent 64-bit stuff in "amd64" labeled locations after AMD had been the first to bring 64-bit architecture to market during a period where there was an active workstation speed/power war going on. Once demand for Intel 64-bit products hit a tipping point, rather than create a separate set of "x64" folders that would carry many duplicates of what was already in the "amd64" folders, Mocrosloth just tossed all the 64-bit stuff in the "amd64" folders. I could be wrong, but I do believe this is the case. PERHAPS MICROSLOTH WILL AT LEAST CLARIFY THIS POINT SO WE DON'T DELETE SOMETHING THAT MAY BE ESSENTIAL FOR RECOVERY PURPOSES. (Caps for emphasis that hopefully Microsloth or someone who knows for sure will clarify the "amd64" naming convention usage.)

Mark Schroeder:

Thanks for your post about WaasMedicAgent reading files from prior Windows 10 updates. Some earlier posts in this thread also mentioned issues about it reading old Windows Update files.

Some months ago, after each Windows 10 update (usually on 2nd week of the month), I started using the Windows Disc Clean utility to delete files listed as "Windows Update Cleanup". The steps are: Run disc clean utility....select Cleanup system files.... checkmark "Windows Update Cleanup" as one category of files for Disc cleanup to purge.

Since starting to do this every month, I have noticed that the WaasMedicAgent delays have been reduced from half hours and hours, to just a couple of minutes on my system, which has hard disk drive. Not sure purging the Windows Update Cleanup is the cause of the improvement, but I have not had the extremely long periods of system non-response that I used to have when Waas Medic Agent ran.

On a couple of occasions, Disc Cleanup showed that cleaning up Windows Update Cleanup files would save over 2 GB of disc space. After it ran, the category showed only a couple hundred MB of space left. If WaasMedic is reading those files, that could be one reason it takes so long.

Note that removing Windows Update Cleanup with Disc Cleanup is not fast. On my HDD system, it may take the utility 10 to 20 minutes to purge those files. But I get to choose the time to run Disc Cleanup, as opposed to WaasMedic popping up when I don't want it to.

I recommend everyone with this problem use the Disc Clean utility to process "Windows Update Cleanup" files after monthly Windows 10 updates.

Thanks very much this seems to have fixed the problem for me.

I ran "Windows Update Cleanup" a couple of days ago and it cleared approx 2.5GB of space.

WaasMedic Agent normally runs every Sunday on my machine (and sometimes other days) but today it didn't or if it did it ran so quickly I didn't notice it.

Out of interest I selected "Clean up System Files" again to see if Windows had replaced the Windows Update files but after calculating there was no option presented for Windows Update Cleanup.

Thanks again.

Did have a period where had a second WAAS medic run each week along with the scheduled Sunday run. Last one of these appeared to have been on 31st August (these are not recorded in History). This month normal 6-7 minutes on 5th, 28 seconds 12th (missed it running) & 5 seconds today. Have MS transferred this issue to somewhere else ? Knowing my luck, WaasMedic will probably return with a vengeance. Week ago had 3 Windows update files, Windows has auto cleaned this down to 2 as of today.

"n some cases the system performance has prevented the use of Recreate my problem.

The Feedback is still useful without the recording, I will still raise those entries.

It is also useful if the Feedback is done shortly after the system is no longer experiencing the high disk usage, I will be calling out those entries as well.@

I AM GUESSING THIS MEANS MICROSOFT DOENSN'T KNOW WHAT IT'S DOING AGAIN. I AM HAVING THE SAME PROBLEM AND THERE SEEMS TO NO SOLUTION OTHER THAN TO LISTEN TO THE MICROSOFT PEEPS WHINE ABOUT THE **** THEY ADD TO THEIR SOFTWARE.

I SUGGEST WRITING TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVES IN WASHINGTON AND TELL THEM TO START LEGISTLATING THIS **** SO THAT USERS HAVE MORE CONTROL OVER WHAT A COMPANY IS ALLOWED TO ADD TO OUR MACHINES. THIS IS RIDICULOUS.