I see this Updates issue a lot on older machines with limited RAM. Changing 'Microsoft Updates' back to 'Windows Updates' will often improve things (it'll still be slow, but won't cripple the system so much).

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/901037

I've had this problem on my Windows XP SP3 laptop since the updates came through on Tuesday!

CPU has been running at 100% since then and I cannot do anything. I have been restarting my laptop around 20-30 times a day. Finally today I turned my laptop on, and once it had logged on, immediately clicked "shut down - and install updates..." instead of what I normally click which is the icon in the taskbar to install them. This took me back to the Windows XP welcome screen where it said "Installing updates .. Do not turn off or unplug your computer" and I came back from uni 2 hours later and it had installed updates and turned off. Turned it back on and it seems to be running fine now, touch wood.

So glad someone else has had this this week!

It's not related to RAM. My Windows XP SP3 laptop has 2gb (maximum it can take) and it wasn't even touching it. Loads of memory free but had 100% CPU.

It seems clicking shut down and letting it install updates then, rather than when logged in, helped for me. I did also leave it on that screen for 2 hours, though.

Mine also has 2Gb of ram. Something has changed as I have rebooted it and it started downloading 7 updates. The cpu usage is back to normal now. I suggest anyone affected should try again. Does sound like it could be related to the latest updates.

edit: hang on it's back at 100% again.

I was having the same problem and found the following site via Google which seems to know the source of the problem and the fix - update internet explorer!!! Even if you don't use it (and I'm a firefox user myself) it seems the automatic update process gets itself into a loop while trying to update IE and doing it manually seems to fix it - at least it did for me. I hope this helps at least some of you.

http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft...2879017-230733

That could well be the answer mctid. I haven't used ie for years and it won't even open on my desktop. The update hangs for me on number 2 which is something to do with ie.
That's a good link btw.

Chris,

Heres the report on the item that is clogging the CPU.

Tell me what you see there.


AudioSrv Windows Audio C:\WINDOWS\System32\audiosrv.dll

BITS Background Intelligent Transfer Service C:\WINDOWS\system32\qmgr.dll

CryptSvc Cryptographic Services C:\WINDOWS\System32\cryptsvc.dll

Dhcp DHCP Client C:\WINDOWS\System32\dhcpcsvc.dll

dmserver Logical Disk Manager C:\WINDOWS\System32\dmserver.dll

ERSvc Error Reporting Service C:\WINDOWS\System32\ersvc.dll

EventSystem COM+ Event System C:\WINDOWS\System32\es.dll

FastUserSwitchingCompatibility Fast User Switching Compatibility C:\WINDOWS\System32\shsvcs.dll

helpsvc Help and Support C:\WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\pchsvc.dll

Netman Network Connections C:\WINDOWS\System32\netman.dll

Nla Network Location Awareness (NLA) C:\WINDOWS\System32\mswsock.dll

RasMan Remote Access Connection Manager C:\WINDOWS\System32\rasmans.dll

Schedule Task Scheduler C:\WINDOWS\system32\schedsvc.dll

seclogon Secondary Logon C:\WINDOWS\System32\seclogon.dll

SENS System Event Notification C:\WINDOWS\system32\sens.dll

SharedAccess Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) C:\WINDOWS\System32\ipnathlp.dll

ShellHWDetection Shell Hardware Detection C:\WINDOWS\System32\shsvcs.dll

srservice System Restore Service C:\WINDOWS\System32\srsvc.dll

TapiSrv Telephony C:\WINDOWS\System32\tapisrv.dll

Themes Themes C:\WINDOWS\System32\shsvcs.dll

TrkWks Distributed Link Tracking Client C:\WINDOWS\system32\trkwks.dll

W32Time Windows Time C:\WINDOWS\System32\w32time.dll

winmgmt Windows Management Instrumentation C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\WMIsvc.dll

wuauserv Automatic Updates C:\WINDOWS\system32\wuauserv.dll

That update came last month, installed on 9th October.
When I switched on yesterday svchost.exe (one of them) was using 100% cpu after about a minute but nothing apparent was happening. I waited 4-5 minutes and rebooted, went to Windows update and eventually it found the updates, updated and all was OK.

From what others have posted it could be this one that is causing the problem.That is part of the Windows update service. Which as others have posted is causing some headaches.

When you click Shut Down is one of the options Install Updates and Shut Down? If so try that. Then if that doesn't work try the manual update of IE suggested by mctid above. Or going to the Windows Update website as suggested by LION8TIGER. (just google it and select the Microsoft link that will appear).

Chris,

The new updates came themselves today and the problem seems to have gone away.

Fingers crossed.

I had this yesterday with my old XP machine. Another forum told me to upgrade my IE from 6 to 8. This solved the problem, I do not use IE I use chrome however Windows update uses IE in the background to do it's updates.