Posted on 01/18/2014 9:44:36 AM PST by Utilizer
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.
...snip...
Microsoft did not announce the fix broadly. Instead, it released the above statement to Susan Bradley, a Microsoft MVP and moderator of the PatchManagement.org list-serve service, which is a discussion group for IT pros. Apparently, that's the only venue where the statement appeared publicly. Microsoft's January security bulletin announcing four patches and nonsecurity releases did not mention the SVCHOST fix for Windows XP.
Microsoft's fix took effect on Tuesday. It apparently stops systems from grinding through older Internet Explorer updates before releasing system resources. The fix also seems not to require any actions by Windows XP users or IT pros to take effect.
(Excerpt) Read more at redmondmag.com ...
that was fast
Pure coincidence. I had just logged in to see what was new.
Kind of funny they fix this now.
I’m running XP with SP3 and SVCHOST used to gobble up 50% of resources and make the computer cooling fan run at annoyingly noisy high speeds.
Today Win7 is being installed on another partition mainly because WinXP will no longer be supported, but the real motivator was I thought that would be the only fix for that SVCHOST issue.
FYI, with numerous changes and a 3rd party upgrade, Win 7 can be made to look and work very similar to XP.
Actually, I found 2 gigs of RAM on sale for about $20 and that did more than anything to speed things up. Microsoft’s file indexing seems to slow things down as well, but you can turn it off.
....a lot of fuss for a browser nobody in their right mind would use.
What they won't say is how many other processes get up to similar things. A network analyzer often reveals some shocking details.
Ended up changing to Avast. When it started to do something similar(constant hard drive activity)I just switched to MS Security Essentials(+ Malwarebytes, Spybot).
Only activity I now see(at idle)are related to .log, network related, Firefox, Rapport(security?), and temp file stuff...but now much less HD activity.
I know I had a few MS updates lately(including Tuesday), can't say I notice any improvement. If anything system has slowed down a bit, maybe from all the security stuff over the years, maybe just from aging hardware, probably a combination of both.
Can't complain, I've had very few issues with XP over the years.
(as they say......all good things...)
The NSA will handle it all, thankyouverymuch.
I wonder what the bug fix number is. I’d like to check my system to see if it is installed. Though I do recall getting a Auto Update notice around Tuesday.
how many Gigs of RAM will XP recognize?
From what I remember, you can install 4, but it won’t be able to recognize all of it.
They really got right on top of that problem. It’s only been an issue for about a decade. Why do I ever boot up in anything other than Linux???
Opera Mini sure is nice on my LG840.
On the XP thing, yes, I saw the svchost thing get fixed last week on the kid’s laptop, although the runaway condition had been occurring only since the last MS update applied a few days before.
So that’s why they fixed it! They had another update that caused it to run wild.
this affected my machine. i first thought it was a virus. luckily i restored back a few days and didn’t allow any ie explorer updates to be installed since then.
If I had to guess, I would think that as the XP EOL approaches, more and more sites are removing their windoze 'update' sections and the MS people did not think to allow for an option in the software that could recognize a No-Such-Directory return. Thus, the endless waiting to retrieve a file, or even worse an incomplete retrieval when the directory listing pointed to a file that was already being overwritten by newer data.
We must applaud Microsoft and their thousands of developers for doing nothing else for years but research and fix this bug.
Why are there resource hogs, but there’s never any resource bacon?
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