Ex_Brit....regarding McA updates

[photo111]

ExB,

Just wanted to pass on that I updated both my Dell enabled McA accounts [laptop w/ the red square, desktop with the new sheild] last night. Both updates went well, with no post update problems.

Sometimes when a user visits these forums, all you see are the problems people are encountering and one can lose sight of the vast majority who are functioning without problems. So, I decided to convey to anyone concerned that this weeks' updates went without a hitch [XP SP3 systems]

On anther note,  the scvhost excessive memory usage problem [not the svchose error on shutdown] that did appear on my laptop after a McA update about a month ago does have a workaround that has worked for me.

Using the Service management tool in XP [right click My Computer, choose Manage, open Services, Select Windows Automatic Update, Click Stop Process], Turn Off Windows Auto Update. This completely shuts down Windows Auto Update 'process' and, in tandem, allows the associated svchost process that runs with the wuaulct to release memory very quickly.  I am assuming at some point in a future McA update or Windows update this problem will be addressed/fixed either directly or by association.

Thanks again,

[exbrit]

Thanks for the update.  As I am not too technical I will pass on your comments regarding the memory usage to a McAfee bod.

All the best.

Message was edited by: Ex_Brit on 03/09/10 10:45:37 EDT AM

[dougk_t3]

@Thanks Ex-Brit.

@Photo111.  Thanks for pointing this out.

For obvious security and system stability reasons, we don't want to encourage people to turn off their Automatic WindowsUpdates.  We know from experience that a large number of customers do not manually run WindowsUpdates or other updating/maintenance tasks.  This means that if automatic updates are turned off, their systems may easily miss getting critical security updates.

I am curious though; the svchost 'excessive memory usage' issue; is there a link to another thread that I can read to get more info, or alternatively could either of you provide me with more info directly? Can you tell me more about this issue on your system Photo111? I assume this excessive memory usage issue does not occur when the McAfee products are temporarily uninstalled?  Do we have any other scenarios in which this occurs, other than the WindowsUpdate scenario?

[photo111]

>>> For obvious security and system stability reasons, we don't want to encourage people to turn off their Automatic WindowsUpdates.  We know from experience that a large number of customers do not manually run WindowsUpdates or other updating/maintenance tasks.  This means that if automatic updates are turned off, their systems may easily miss getting critical security updates. <<<

Steer,

Keep in mind, the workaround I outlined works for that session. Once the user turns off their machine, on the next boot up, Windows Automatic Update service/process, starts automatically. The Stop Service button in Right Click My Computer --> Services --> Select Automatic Updates --> Stop Service can also be restarted using the same path and click Start Service. I understand your concern, but, even for non sophisticated users, if they follow the 3-4 steps to the location and they stop the service, they will be safe again once they restart the computer or using the manual start up procedure. If one is running into really high svchost/wuauclt memory uage and eating up 90+% of the CPU processing, it's an easy enough workaround. Let's be honest, Windows updates once a month on the second Tuesday of the month. WHY that process should be running every day is beyond me. If they can keep current on time/date/ etc. they should be able to set Auto updates to turn on when it is needed even with differences in geographicel/time zone differences. These are computers after all.

>>>  am curious though; the svchost 'excessive memory usage' issue; is there a link to another thread that I can read to get more info, or alternatively could either of you provide me with more info directly? <<<

The infor I can provide you directly is this; about 4-6 weeks ago, after a McA update AND a Windows update for XP SP3, this memory issue appeared. It's hard to attribute the problem's beginning to either update since I update McA on Thursday night and Windows on Friday night [3 days after the initial release]. The problem began the next day or two where we noticed it.

What's the exact symptoms? In my case, after booting up the laptop, and enabling the wifi connection, with Task Manager open, within 30 seconds, svchost begins a move from about 15-20mg of memory usage to anywhere between 125-150mg of memory usage. Concurrently, wuaulct moves in tandem to over 100mg from less than 5mg and while both those processes are mvoing sky high, CPU shoots to 95%+, rendering any browsing capability almost unusable.

As previously stated, if the laptop is in that high memory/high cpu state, and I open Manage-->Services-->Automatic Updates and click on Stop Service, wuaulct disappears immediately, and within 10 seconds svchost drops to 15-20mg and the computer returns to normal functioning/browsing.

Now, for multiple years, I never had this problem. Then, after a McA/Windows update within a 24 hour period, the problem was there, as if by magic.

I haven't seen any other threads regarding this particular svchost problem here [not the svchost shutdown error], so, I can't point you to any threads. However, if you Google "svchost high memory usage problem" you will see a number of interesting articles/posts.

Here is a post that describes many causes as well as the McA part of the problem solution. this particulat post is from 2007, however, there are other more recent results from a Google search.

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistawu/thread/7f401392-268c-4840-a458-8b063fbda084

http://forums.techguy.org/windows-xp/704243-solved-svchost-exe-high-memory.html

Search any combination of svchost, high memory usage, high cpu usage and you will find plenty of discussion.