Nick Whittome - The Naked MVP

Was there not previously a Windows 2000 version of this fix?  

If so, why does Microsoft (here in Europe) no longer know about it??

I loaded the latest patch on my IBM ThinkPad, and it still has the same problem.  SVCHOST.exe still hogs up CPU everytime I log into the computer for a good 3-5 minutes.

-Patrick

Nice to see things are moving along on this svchost.exe issue.  We still have the problem after installing the patch though.  Any idea on a timescale for those of us who're still having probs?

Yeah, the patch was released ... the same exact version that I got by calling in, in fact, but the only problem is that it didn't fix the issue. I've tried applying it a couple of times .. any idea on a time frame? I'd appreciate it.

Same problem here : the patch is no use to 100% CPU usage !

There is a way to partially isolate the problem modify the start of the windows update server to use a different SVCHOST than the other services.

Stop the update service

Go to

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SvcHost]

modify the entry of netsvcs to remove the reference to wuauserv and create a new multistring value called windowupdate with wuauserv as the only entry (make sure it's a multistring not just a string).

Go to

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\wuauserv]

and change the line with imagepath from

%systemroot%\system32\svchost.exe -k netsrvc

to

%systemroot%\system32\svchost.exe -k windowupdate

Do it for all three controlsets.

Now start the update service, it will now use it's own SVCHOST.

i've deployed this to a number of test machines now and all are working much better.  there are still quite a few cpu usage spikes, but none of them are stopping other applications from working properly any more and updates are now being applied successfully, which is all i really care about.  it can use as much cpu power as it likes as long as it's not stopping users from working and generating lots of calls to my team. :-)

thanks for the info anyway nick, it's much appreciated, this has been wrecking our heads here for months now.

You can also do this via:

sc stop wuauserv

sc config wuauserv type= own

sc start wuauserv

Reboot.

It makes a bit of difference, but not a drastic amount.

Same problem, fix doesn't seem to work.

Pc's (svchost) still use 100% cpu whene checing for updates

I've bitten the bullet and reinstalled WSUS, opting not to deploy Office patches.  We're working normally now. It's hardly a long term fix though !!

does anyone happen to know if the CPU usage problem is avtually affecting whether or not patches are being applied?  are patches failing if this is happening?  even though things seem to be working okay i'm worried that the problem isn't fixed, just the symptoms.

any ideas?

I found that a few low-spec machines (Celeron 466, 256Mb RAM) were struggling to install a couple of patches. By and large, no other problems.

I had a couple of low-end XP boxes that were struggling to complete the installation of a few patches. I don't know whether this was a symptom of the 100% issue though.

I called Microsoft yesterday only to find out that they would not give me the hotfix, since my OS is WinXP Media Center Edition (2002).  The tech told me the hofix is not approved for use on my OS.  As I see it WinXP Media Center is just WinXP Pro with the Media Center app.  Is there anybody out there who could send me the patch?   Thanks!