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Microsoft still trying to fix SVCHOST bug in Windows XP


geeteam

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Over a month ago, we reported that many users defiant or unable to upgrade from Windows XP were experiencing a bug in SVCHOST that causes the CPU of a PC to go up to 100 percent usage. We contacted Microsoft for comment but they did not send back a response.


Although Microsoft is trying to come up with a solution before the company officially cuts off support for Windows XP in less than five months, this much we do know. InfoWorld reports that the problem was supposed to be fixed with this month's "Patch Tuesday" releases. However, it appears that patch was ineffective against the SVCHOST bug.


According to a statement from Windows Update team member Doug Neal:


The problem is caused by the Windows Update client evaluating an exceptionally long supersedence chain - something IE6 and IE7 have more than any other version of IE due to their time in market. Each 'link' in the chain doubles the CPU resources needed to evaluate it over the previous version. The chain is so long that the design stymies the WUA client.

Since this month's patch update didn't solve the issue, it sounds like it's back to the drawing board for this problem. However, Neal indicated they will provide a patch that will finally fix this bug "as soon as possible to halt the impact."



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[XP Pro] Wuaueng.dll / Svchost.exe 100% Usage Problem.

The "Fix":

From a command session, type carefully:

net stop wuauserv
rmdir c:\windows\softwaredistribution /s
net start wuauserv


You need to stop the wuauserv service (if running) to clear the softwaredistribution folder.

You may disable Automatic Update from Windows. Worked for me (in a XP pro SP3 VM). All the other things like updating IE 8, the Windows Update Service and other stuff didn't work, how can it, i have SP3 and a custom update pack installed for all updates after SP3, so "out-of-date" couldn't be a reason for it.

The problem for me was the Update Service, that loaded wuauserv/wuaueng.dll as sub-instance of svchost.exe and exactly that *.dll file took 99% CPU all the time. You can easily find the culprit on your own using Process Explorer or similar tools, disabling Automatic Update might not be enough, you might disable the whole Service thru services.msc.

Edited by n0_risk!
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Was continuously facing this issue on my sister's laptop. Turns out, the MSE that I had installed turned on the Automatic Updates, which it probably requires for updating the virus definitions. Had to go through long list of google searches, which gave an idea to check the svchost via Process Explorer, turned out that it was indeed Wuaueng.dll.

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After one week or so trying to fix it, searching for solutions on Google, i just gave up. They're doing this so that everybody moves to Windows 7.

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Who gives a shit for winXP its outdated anyway

You're wrong here, there are lots of people who still use it and there certainly are people in this forum who run it, maybe not on their main but on their 2 or 3 rigs. To many it's considered a classic OS, just like a classic car. Just because it's outdated doesn't mean it's shit. It still has some value.

Anyway damn M$ must be doing it on purpose to get people to upgrade.

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I don't think Microsoft has caused this problem on purpose though, however, they may not fix it on purpose.

Reason I don't blame Microsoft here is that this bug exists from a long long time. Even I had faced this problem many times during the time I was using XP, that was like few years ago.

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