Microsoft Quietly Fixes Windows XP Resource Hog Problem

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft indicated this week that it has fixed a Windows XP resource-hog problem associated with the system's SVCHOST.EXE processes. Windows XP users affected by this problem typically found that the operating system was using up system resources for 15 minutes to an hour after startup, making it difficult to use the machine during that period. The Microsoft Update team had vowed last month to spend the holiday break tackling the issue, which has plagued some users for years. The fix involved stopping the system from perpetually checking Internet Explorer updates. Microsoft indicated that the fix was rolled out on Tuesday."

windows embedded systems based on XP still get

[Joe_Dragon]

windows embedded systems based on XP still get updates for some time and firms can buy more update for XP as well.

I really thought they would never actually fix thi

[Anonymous Coward]

I repair old computers to be resold and the amount of time it would take to get the first updates was the single longest time waster of re-installing a fresh copy of XP on an old machine. The last 2 days it only took about 5 minutes for XP to figure out what updates were exactly needed instead of what had become the normal several hours.

Exponential algorithm

[tepples]

I seem to remember reading that the time used by the previous update conflict resolution algorithm scales exponentially [slashdot.org] with the number of updates issued for a particular platform. Until recently, the number of updates wasn't big enough to cause a problem, but after 12 years of updates, this has changed.

Re:Great to know that they fixed it! Finally.

[Anonymous Coward]

My C64 never crashed .. maybe a better joke would have been to mention Windows 98, 95, ME, CE, 3.1 or every single version of MS DOS ever released.

Re:EOL installation media

[Anonymous Coward]

MS has promised that they won't release a patch to disable activation and those servers are going dark too.

"A spokesperson confirmed that activations will still be required for retail installations of Windows XP post April 8. "Windows XP can still be installed and activated after end of support on April 8,"" [zdnet.com]

Re:I really thought they would never actually fix

[HybridST]

Sounds like you should have rolled the updates into an updated xp iso. Search the MS kb for more info.

Re:EOL installation media

[Hamsterdan]

Or someone will release an unofficial service pack like it was done for 9x

http://www.htasoft.com/u98sesp/ [htasoft.com] (that one I didn't know about)
http://www.freewarefiles.com/Unofficial-Windows-SE-Service-Pack-a_program_16791.html [freewarefiles.com] (that's what I use on my old 486 vintage box)

Re:CORRECTION

[fluffy99]

If the summary is correct I don't really see how this affects servers all that much... The summary says it is an issue in the first 15-60 minutes after startup. Servers are generally up for longer periods of time so the actual impact would be low for W2K03.

It's about time they fixed this. I intermittently run a Virtual Machine version of XP. A few months ago, I noticed windows update service (running under svchost) would chew up 99% of the cpu when booted up for 10 minutes. Seems the problem was windows updates check for the presence of every single IE update ever released, when they were all superseded by the latest IE cumulative updates anyway and not per-requisites for anything else. I'm not sure why they are patting themselves on the back, when they just did the equivalent of declining superceded updates in WSUS (generally done in seconds, btw).