WaasMedic Agent Exe stopping me from working

Completely baffled. This morning booted, few minutes later opened Task manager. Service Host Windows Update running, then Windows Module Installer running in conjunction. Few minutes later opened settings/Update & Security - was in process of installing monthly update - went thru' complete install process as normal. This was inside reserved working hours - no notifications except reboot now/later on completing install process. Normally, when opening app, it requires manual confirmation to 'Download & Install' - no choice this morning. Last physical check 4:12 pm yesterday - showed nothing available - looked again 2 hours later prior to shutdown still showing 4:12 pm - did not check any further. Had a couple of mid-term updates done this - totally unaware of their happening - both inside reserved working hours. In February when I checked prior to evening shutdown on the Tuesday evening, there was the monthly update which had mysteriously appeared with no input from me but this required download & shutdown so arrived 12hours prior to normal. What is going on ?. Perhaps my fault for switching on computer - would not have these problems if I left it off.

I started a new thread with "need answer" checked and did get a user response but nothing from Microsoft. I think someone said this thread is not marked as a problem which is why no response. Here's the link to the new thread.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows\_10-performance/waasmedicagentexe-high-disk-usage/5e916dd3-f537-42be-be18-9823e1ef1e0d?tm=1615077333324

My computer slowed to a crawl. I cannot work. I checked task manager and saw a process waas Medic agent exe is the culprit. It is using 2.8 mb of memory and 1.2 mbs of disk usage.

I understand this is a Microsoft process. What I don't understand is what give Microsoft the right to take over my computer whenever it wants to and stop me from working.

How do I stop this?

Do a Google search for WaasMedic Agent and you will find that it is a feature of Windows 10 that checks that the Windows update process is running properly and repairs the process if not. You can disable it only with third-party software, but that is not advisable.

wmcole:

Selecting Windows Update Cleanup from disk cleanup would not normally cause problems, or cause a particular update to fail. I use that option of disk cleanup every month when I run disk cleanup prior to the regular 2nd Tuesday of the month MS update. On my HDD system, using Windows Update Cleanup does take a very long time to complete.

I don't usually select Windows Update Cleanup until I know the next major version update is coming. But because boot-up is getting slower and slower (now 13.5 mins) I decided to see if that helped. The cleanup itself took about 40 mins compared to the usual 3 - 5 when I run it after a weekly backup. But I had never seen WaasMedic running before, so I assumed it was either the failed Flash removal updates or the Windows Update Cleanup that drove it. It kept me from reasonable response times for about 1.75 hours. Today's boot was back to about the 14 - 15 mins before I could do anything with a reasonable response time. Interesting to watch the desktop icons paint in their white rectangle place holders one-by-one at the rate of one per second. :^{