Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

SVChost performance issues -- hold on just a smidge longer

E-Bitz - SBS MVP the Official Blog of the SBS "Diva" — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 04:42:03 GMT

WSUS Product Team Blog : Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan: http

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Guido Elia — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 12:01:23 GMT

Any new for resolving the issue for MU too ?

SVCHOST issue, KB927891 and WSUS 3.0 Client

Nick Whittome - "The Naked MVP" — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 12:23:34 GMT

The new WSUS 3.0 server is due for release next week, which is good news for administrators everywhere

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Anthony — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 22:10:14 GMT

Will this also fix the memory leak in the svchost instance hosting automatic updates? One of my SBS R2 boxes needs rebooting every few days due to memory usage growing in this svchost instance, unless I disable the automatic updates service. Thanks.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Andy — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 16:03:03 GMT

is the mis update KB927891 going to be made available through WSUS 3.0 or WSUS 2.0???

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Andy — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 16:03:17 GMT

is the msi update KB927891 going to be made available through WSUS 3.0 or WSUS 2.0???

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

John [msft/winse] — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 21:32:00 GMT

Anthony: The memory leak is fixed in the MSI update, referenced by KB 927891.

Andy: The MSI update should go out over WU and MU in late May or early June.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

No-one — Tue, 01 May 2007 08:31:23 GMT

"Keep in mind that the new client is only a partial solution for the svchost/msi issue and clients must have both KB927891 and the new 3.0 client installed for a full solution. "

I am running WSUS 2.0.

Can we rollout KB927891 to all clients, regardless of whether they are experiencing issues? (along with the 3.0 client when it gets released). I have a large network and don't know who does/doesn't have the svchost.exe issue.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Brian — Tue, 01 May 2007 19:32:25 GMT

John: Is a more specific release date for KB927891 to WU/MU available?

Windows Update Agent 3.0 (Version 7.0.6000.374)

patch-info.de — Tue, 01 May 2007 21:37:31 GMT

Kurzbeschreibung: Neue Version des Windows Update Clients für Microsoft Update, Windows Update und Auto Update. Aktuell: Ja (Direktdownload der Standalone-Version - wird nach und nach auch über Windows Update angeboten bzw. direkt installiert) Enthä

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Miha — Wed, 02 May 2007 01:15:50 GMT

We as many others have same issue and have been forced to turn off AU service due to svchost high cpu utilization for long period of time. But what is the best way to turn AU on clients again on and not being hit again from that svchost? Is any updated version of client available as part of update or do we have to go from computer to computer and use some partial hot fixes?

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Gary — Wed, 02 May 2007 20:16:48 GMT

Tuesday, May 01, 2007 1:31 AM by No-one

"Can we rollout KB927891 to all clients, regardless of whether they are experiencing issues? (along with the 3.0 client when it gets released). I have a large network and don't know who does/doesn't have the svchost.exe issue."

I would like an answer to this as well as I am in the same situation.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Bill — Wed, 02 May 2007 21:17:21 GMT

Can we get KB927891 posted on the catalog update site so we can import it into WSUS 3.0? I thought hotfixes were supposed to be available on the catalog site?

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Sudheer [MSFT] — Thu, 03 May 2007 06:22:54 GMT

MU catalog has not released. It is still in beta and doesnt contain any hotfixes. Hence KB927891 can not be imported to WSUS at this time.

You will have to wait for KB927891 to be released as a patch through WU which is expected to happen in late May or early June as per a prev comment.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Robert — Thu, 03 May 2007 17:19:16 GMT

Your blog says that the updated client will be available on May 1/07 through either the xml file on the MSDN page or through the MS Download site. Has this date changed as I cannot find a link to the new client in either location.

Is it possible to extract the client from the WSUS 3.0 installation files? If so, how would one go about this. I'm temped to install WSUS 3.0 in a test VM just to get the WSUS 3.0 client.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Matthew Watkin — Thu, 03 May 2007 17:36:54 GMT

Anyone know of a way that I can schedule when the wuauclt.exe runs?

Right now its 2 maybe three times a day.

If I could minimise and predict the 100% CPU time, until the patch is fully complete, that would probably be bearable.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Jeff Guillet — Thu, 03 May 2007 21:02:24 GMT

I have tested both of these updates on an XP Pro workstation in our WSUS 2.0 environment, but the problem persists. Will it only solve the problem if the WSUS server is 3.0?

This is very frustrating in our large 10,000 seat environment. Please advise.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Bob Babcock — Thu, 03 May 2007 21:13:34 GMT

What about machines running Windows 2000? KB927891 is for XP and higher, but the only machines I've seen have the svchost problem were running Win/2K.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Allen Ma — Thu, 03 May 2007 21:49:57 GMT

So from reading the newsgroups:

1) install the hotfix 927891

2) install the WUA agent 3.0

3) upgrade the Server to 3.0

For the Hotfix: can that be applied to machines not affected? We aren't sure who's really affected as our user base is 3,000, and I'd like to push the hotfix via SMS to XP machines to make things simpler.

Any harm in doing that?

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

No Wsusy Fan — Fri, 04 May 2007 03:43:43 GMT

If I had my option - I would put 128Meg of in all of your machines and watch you all cry.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Sudheer [MSFT] — Fri, 04 May 2007 10:33:12 GMT

Jeff,

WUS 3.0 server is not required for this fix on the client.

Even with WSUS 3.0 client installed, you will still see high CPU usage when the scan happens.

But with WSUS 3.0 client, the machine will be responsive and other applications can be launched and used.

Please let us know what you are seeing in your environment.

It may be better if you post the issue in WSUS newsgroup @

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgroups/dgbrowser/en-us/default.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.server.update_services

ShortNews - Longhorn Beta3 recenze, řešení problému s svhost na 100% CPU, Vista BitLocker ve Virtual PC, problémy s Windows 2003 SP2 a další

SBS2003 and network — Fri, 04 May 2007 14:03:27 GMT

Longhorn Beta3 recenze Jak je dobrým zvykem na SuperSite recence na Longhorn na sebe nedala dlouho čekat a je poměrně hodně obsáhlá. Doporučuji k přečtení Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows- Wind ...

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

From Newsgroup — Fri, 04 May 2007 18:40:30 GMT

We currently are using WSUS 2.0 to manage our 10,000 node distributed

environment. All workstation clients are Windows XP SP2. We've been living

with the 100% CPU utilization issue that occurs when clients perform update

detection with the WSUS server(s).

I was happy to read the article, "Update on svchost/msi performance issue

and 3.0 Client distribution plan" on the WSUS 3.0 blog

(http://blogs.technet.com/wsus/archive/2007/04/28/update-on.aspx) and was

hopeful that it would resolve this issue, but the problem remains.

I have a test machine where I first installed KB927891 and then updated the

WSUS agent software using WindowsUpdateAgent20-x86.exe. Both wuaueng.dll and

wuauclt.exe are now version 5.8.0.2694. I continue to see 100% CPU

utilization for about 90 seconds after I run WUAUCLT /DETECTNOW, where

SVCHOST.EXE runs between 65-98%. During this time, the computer is

unresponsive.

I've been told by Sudheer [MSFT] that the fix does not require a WSUS 3.0

back end to work properly. He suggested posting my issue here. Any advice

please? Why are we continuing to have this issue?

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Jeff Guillet — Fri, 04 May 2007 19:14:02 GMT

It works! I had the wrong version of the WSUS Agent software installed. Please read the thread at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgroups/dgbrowser/en-us/default.mspx?&guid=&sloc=en-us&dg=microsoft.public.windows.server.update_services&p=1&tid=13891aca-a133-48ff-8cd7-09d34079ae43&mid=dae06c69-12b8-4e96-a328-e85e239eb031

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Peter — Wed, 09 May 2007 12:39:10 GMT

I have tried both WindowsXP-KB927891-v3-x86 and WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86 and I don't think it is better.

I am using WSUS 2.0 SP1.

It looks like the problem is still there. Brutally slowing-down the PC.

Isn't there a way to finaly fix it (after number of fixes for fixes which takes abou 3/4 year), please ?

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Vilius — Wed, 09 May 2007 16:29:10 GMT

Same here. Doesn't helped me a lot :(. Maybe because my primary AU client is MU not WU.

I tried both patches on PCs that are connected to WSUS 2.0 SP1 and on PCs that are connected to main Microsoft servers. Still some older PCs (like celeron 1ghz with 512mb of ram) boots up and hangs for about 7-10 minutes. I can not open Word or any other applications during that period.

Am I missing something?

P.S. By the way i'm using Office 2003 Lithuanian edition. I noticed that some of the performance issues is because of this. In other words, the scan period is a lot smaller in the PCs without Office or with English versions.

Если ваш компьютер подвисает на время установки обновлений...

My notes. Заметки на полях. — Thu, 10 May 2007 02:24:50 GMT

У меня есть хорошая новость - эту проблему, скорее всего, устранит установка обновленной программы-агента

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

SS — Thu, 10 May 2007 05:48:43 GMT

>>to experience performance issues like UI hang and long scan times.

You call this a performance issue. This issue renders the Microsoft Operating System USELESS.

I cannot use my XP sp2 laptop at home because of this problem.

Because this particular svchost loads multiple services in the same process killing this stops everthing else.

If I don't kill it, I cannot do anything other than pressing the restart button. Because of this issue thousands of people are frustrated and productivity is lost and issues like this is going to push windows users towards other operating systems

>> will completely address the what we have fondly called the svchost/msi issue.

Losing precious time and hanging the OS is not a fond memory. whoever is responsible for this should be ashamed of this.

Software Update is supposed help alleviate problems. It must not get in the way of the use of the operating system.

Why this issue not caught by internal QA team makes one wonder about the quality of Microsoft.

frustated user

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

iain podger — Thu, 10 May 2007 14:39:00 GMT

I am in agreement with the last post.

i work for a company supporting many small and medium businesses and in the last week we have recieved an inordinate number of calls for this issue, and god knows how many others are just living with this.

whats more annoying is there is a working solution and it has not been widely publicised.

Please just make this public knowledge, attach the notes about installing the latest update agent into the article for KB927891 as the searches in the MS knowledge base mention nothing of this part of the fix

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Malte — Thu, 10 May 2007 17:03:11 GMT

I hope MS will provide

KB927891 and WU Agent 3.0 for WSUS 2.0

So than you could rollout these patches to clients with WSUS 2.0 first, next to update server to WSUS 3.0

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

jaded_admin — Thu, 10 May 2007 17:19:49 GMT

This does not fix it.....maybe you guys should test your "fix" on a 1 Ghz machine with 256 Mb of RAM. I doubt you'd call what you've cobbed together a "fix." Thanks for nothing. We are seriously considering a pilot with SLED or Ubuntu and OpenOffice now. Your poor workmanship is driving your customers right into the arms of the Open Source community.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Brian Bergin — Thu, 10 May 2007 17:34:56 GMT

We use batch files to stop the "automatic updates" service for all but about 4 hours/day. We simply issue:

net stop "automatic updates" at 6AM

and then at 2AM the following day we issue:

net start "automatic updates"

This fixes this bug MS has been unable to fully resolve. Apply the patch without adding the WSUS 3 client doesn't solve the problem on XP SP2 boxes, there's no update for XP SP1 boxes (some people have no choice but to be on SP1 because of internal application issues) and no choice for Win2k at all. The other solution is to stop using Microsoft Office as the CPU hang only appears on systems with Office. If the system has Open Office the problem is not there.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Dave Riehl — Thu, 10 May 2007 18:00:30 GMT

I agree this issue is not fixed by KB927891. I hope MS is still working on this as everything I can find them saying says they think it is resolved.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Summit Tuladhar — Thu, 10 May 2007 18:20:24 GMT

I installed both WindowsXP-KB927891-v3-x86 and WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86 on Windows XP SP2 boxes configured to get updates from a WSUS 2.0 server.

The problem still exists.

Will it be solved by upgrading WSUS server to v3.0 ?

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Sarcosis — Thu, 10 May 2007 23:52:55 GMT

We found that this only effects our xp sp2 with Office 2003.

when we installed 2007 ent. this problem went away.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Sudheer [MSFT] — Fri, 11 May 2007 01:36:40 GMT

If you are still seeing UI hang issues with WSUS 3.0, then

* please confirm that you are indeed having WSUS 3.0 client. (File version of C:\windows\system32\wuaueng.dll should be 7.0.6000.374)

* Please follow-up with Microsoft product support

http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?gprid=6527

There is no charge for support issues with Windows Update.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

ltpolaris — Fri, 11 May 2007 02:17:42 GMT

I installed KB927891, rebooted, then installed the new WUA client..

I went to the Windows Update Site, reinstalled Microsoft Update, hit the custom button, and was hopeful for a rapid and less resourse scan.

After 25 minutes, with the scan either hung or still running, I gave up, uninstalled Microsoft update, and went back to the old regimen of using just Windows update (takes about 3 min to scan) and then manually going to Office update (takes < 2 min to scan) adn installing the appropriate updates.

Doesn't appear that the fixes address the issue I experience on multiple machines

Windows XP SP2, Compaq Presario 2100, 1.6 GHZ Celeron, 512 mb memory

Hope this helps

Jim

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Bob — Fri, 11 May 2007 07:01:39 GMT

Does anyone on any of these sites speak English (i.e. not computerspeak). My resolution was to end the svchost.exe process in Task Manager, which apparently kills my sound function for audio files, audio on video, etc. but otherwise makes my computer very functional. If this is problem that Microsoft has created, but failed to fix, then that is ridiculous. Period. Not interested in becoming a programmer to fix it. Complain about the auto industry if you want, but I can pull in to 100 shops within 5 miles to get my car fixed. But I get this sh*t from the 2.0 world of Microsoft.

Only way I know how to say it.

Bob.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Greg — Fri, 11 May 2007 11:34:15 GMT

I have a wsus 2.0 server and want to upgrade to wsus 3.0 shortly. Can someone please summarize the problem for me - will it effect my clients after I upgrade? Must I roll out the KB patch after I upgrade?

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Alan O'Riordan — Fri, 11 May 2007 12:07:01 GMT

I think you should put an advisory link on your home page and keep us updated with clear progress and fully tested fixes. This is clearly a very serious worldwide issue.

I will advise the disabling of the automatic update service until a clear resolution is found.

SANS Internet Storm Center - Mailbag: MS Patches / Symantec Vuln

Chris Mosby at myITforum.com — Fri, 11 May 2007 16:03:26 GMT

Mailbag: MS Patches / Symantec Vuln Published: 2007-05-10, Last Updated: 2007-05-10 22:43:00 UTC by Daniel

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Neil — Fri, 11 May 2007 20:37:46 GMT

We have run into similar issues on all of our Dell Latitude D620 laptops. It was only this model system that exhibited the problem. Our fix was to install the fix from KB916089:

<a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916089">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916089</a>

This cleared up our issue. In our case though, the problem only was only present when AU was installing updates, not during the AU scan. This may not apply but it might be worth a shot for some of those who are not having any luck with the fix in this article.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

John — Sat, 12 May 2007 00:19:27 GMT

Is the KB916089 patch not available for Windows 2000 computers? Will simply upgrading to the Windows Update 3.0 client fix the issue on Win2K boxes? It seems that almost all of our problems are with Windows 2000 systems.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

David Brown — Sat, 12 May 2007 01:50:03 GMT

We have 25 PCs all running XP Pro SP2 with Office 2003.

All of the single processor models are unusable for at least 15 minutes each morning unless we turn off Automatic Updates. The dual core models are slow but usable.

I'm assuming whoever tested the update software was using a fast multi-core processor and so didn't see a problem. As part of any Microsoft Software test there should be a mixture of hardware used.

We aren't going to go out and purchase new PCs with fast multi-core processors which happen to have Vista preloaded on them because Microsoft can't get the fundamentals of their testing correct.

Vista and Office 2007 will not be loaded in our company until at least 2009 so Windows Update speed tests should be done using Window 2000 and XP machines with modest hardware capabilities.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

gopal — Sat, 12 May 2007 08:14:56 GMT

My old desktop running XPProfSP2-IE7-Off2k3SP2 - works fine with the Windows/Microsoft Update page. The file version of wuaeng.dll is 5.8.0.2469 dated May2005.

I encountered this issue few days back when rebuilding my laptop after a harddisk crash. The Windows update page worked fine but when i installed the Microsoft update the system would hang. Probably the new Microsoft update software had bugs.

Solved the problem by installing the new WUAgent from http://download.windowsupdate.com/v7/windowsupdate/redist/standalone/WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe and subsequently the hotfix KB927891.

Microsoft's Releases Fix For Automatic Updates

The Daily Ramblings of an SMS Engineer — Sat, 12 May 2007 12:44:34 GMT

While the article below highlights complaints posted to the WSUS product team blog if you read in the

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Martin B — Sat, 12 May 2007 19:41:02 GMT

I have 2 computers running Windows Vista and Office 2003, and this issue is present on both of them. Has anyone else experienced this with Vista? As I noticed in a comment on this website; one was discovering this problem on computers with Office 2003, but not with 2007. But, has anyone else noticed this issue with Windows Vista?

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Ken H — Sun, 13 May 2007 04:42:23 GMT

I upgraded a number of computers to Office 2003. Nearly all of these systems have experienced the svchost problem. There has not been a single occurence of this issue on systems that have not had the Office 2003 upgrade. Systems that had a fresh installation of Office 2003 also have exhibited no symptoms. Strange, eh?

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Charles Senne — Sun, 13 May 2007 06:04:52 GMT

the bad thread in SVCHOST that eats the CPU is

ntdll.dll!RtlHeapAllocate+0x18c

After the updates.. msi/wsus, the thread changes to

wuaueng.dll!DllInstall+0x1bed4

Here's a link to a screenshot...

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/5152/uhhbaddc9.jpg

Here's a confirmed fix by me, and after 7 hours of debugging.

DO THIS IN ORDER!!!

net stop bits

net stop wuauserv

regsvr32 /u wuaueng.dll /s

del /f /s /q %windir%\SoftwareDistribution\*.*

del /f /s /q %windir%\windowsupdate.log

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\atl.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\jscript.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\msxml3.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\softpub.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wuapi.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wuaueng.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wuaueng1.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wucltui.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wups.dll

%windir%\system32\regsvr32.exe /s %windir%\system32\wuweb.dll

net start bits

net start wuauserv

wuauclt.exe /resetauthorization /detectnow

Then hit up Windows Update and run a custom scan... make sure you use the regular Microsoft Update, and not the Windows Update method.

Thanks,

XPGoD

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Tom S — Sun, 13 May 2007 08:01:30 GMT

Re: Ken H & Martin B: apparent only w/ Office 2003

I've a mixture of Office 2003 and viewers only, XP Pro & Home (all SP2)

My 3 unaffected systems all have Windows Installer 3.1 v2 <URL:http://support.microsoft.com/?id=893803>

msi.dll version 3.1.4000.2435 .

They do not have 916089 or 927891 or WU Agent 3.0. All use Microsoft Update and are current as of the afternoon of May 12th.

Custom Microsoft Updates can be reasonable or take a very long time to run (3 minutes on P-III 1Ghz, 512, 10's of minutes on old, messy p4 notebook), but the systems are wholly usable.

Those of you with trouble, what is your Windows Installer version, and msi.dll version information?

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

disillusioned_microsoft_user — Sun, 13 May 2007 10:11:01 GMT

We're expected to do these manual installs on all our systems? I have 700 laptops, 90% of which are in the field at any given time with little or no connectivity - but when they do, they most certainly get updates from Microsoft.

And most are having severe problems with WU/MU hanging and have also been having problems with svchost.exe crashing. This has been going on for weeks. The updates to msi.dll seem to retard svchost.exe from crashing but the issue is definately not resolved.

Since this is such a HUGE world-wide problem, why are not these updates being pushed out IMMEDIATELY?

I am tired of telling my users that "Microsoft pushed out ANOTHER bad update, AGAIN."

I believe heads should roll in the QA department at Microsoft. Anyone can make mistakes. In the last 2+ months, there have been mistakes after mistakes after mistakes.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

NetZion — Sun, 13 May 2007 22:54:21 GMT

I wish I had found this page sooner. I just spent the weekend trying to figure out what was hijacking my svchost when automatic updates were turned on. So this was an MS problem? This client's system isn't running Server tho, it's running xp home edition.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Vilius — Sun, 13 May 2007 23:19:28 GMT

I tried instructions on comment #947672 and at first they seemed to work. But then I noticed that what it does is converts primary update engine from MU to WU. You can clearly see this by going to http://update.microsoft.com. The page instructs you to install MU again even if it was installed before. I also tried it by uninstalling some Office security updates, and after reboot those updates are not detected anymore by AU client.

Moreover upgrading to MU again doesn't solve the problems described in above. Seems like AU client became badly broken.

That's why I don't advise anyone to follow these instructions.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

NetZion — Sun, 13 May 2007 23:43:52 GMT

The KB927891 fix didn't work on XP Home SP2 with Office 2003. Neither did the standalone WUAgent install. I always knew updates were evil. Temporary solution: Turn off updates til MS finds a real fix.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

gopal — Mon, 14 May 2007 05:29:17 GMT

re: netzion

..neither did standalone WUAgent install... Did u get any error or a msg that WUAgent is already installed?.

Pls execute the installer again manually (Start - Run), with parameter /wuforce as in:

WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe /wuforce

Download the latest version of agent from :-

http://download.windowsupdate.com/v7/windowsupdate/redist/standalone/WindowsUpdateAgent30-x86.exe

After this is done install the fix KB927891.

note : i also have XPhomeSP2-IE7-Off2003 on my laptop and this worked.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Jon — Mon, 14 May 2007 15:19:55 GMT

Does anyone know when KB927891 will be available to WSUS server v2 or v3?

This is causing hundreds of my desktop/notebooks to slow to a crawl on booting into windows and I hope we don't have to wait long. or do you suggest we manually run the KB927891 patch in our netlogon ?

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

kgreene@pathfind.org — Mon, 14 May 2007 17:15:20 GMT

Here's how we dealt with this problem to get workstations functional again:

The issue appears to only affect workstations that use Microsoft Update (as opposed to Windows Update). We do not use WSUS, relying instead on WU and MU.

Microsoft Update is the problem on XP machines with Office 2003. Windows Update appears to not be affected.

The only solution appeared to us to be: Manually visit Microsoft Update. Change Settings / Revert to Windows Update only.

In other words, turning off Microsoft Update allows the workstation to still receive critical Windows Updates, but eliminiates the CPU leak.

This might be a better solution than simply turning off all Windows Updates (and may assist when an ultimate solution is found to the problem).

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

JohnDoe — Mon, 14 May 2007 18:11:13 GMT

Shame on Microsoft. This issue is driving customers of all types and sizes away from their faulty software. Poor and mismanaged response from the technical team and absolute cover-up of this issue from the masses (most affected people don't even realize they're affected) is in poor taste to say the least. I've been trying to figure out an automated way to fix this on 500+ affected computers on the network for several months now, and other than removing Microsoft Update and deploying patches via NON-MICROSOFT (Novell) solution, nothing helped (including numerous "solutions"). My users are tired of waiting for applications to open, work does not wait and patience is short. Help Desk is overwhelmed with this issue, and dollars get lost. Next stop is most definitely LINUXLAND. Seems like a small investment to retrain users to the basics of Open Source OS than to constantly aggravate them with useless downtime. User does not need a degree in computer science to be able to use a computer, but after all the latest blows and endless complicated mandatory instructions form the IT team, it sure seems this way. Utilization of my computer can be better spent finding cures than feeding svchost.exe and heating up the room.

-very frustrated administrator

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Ron — Mon, 14 May 2007 22:47:21 GMT

We have about 500 windows machines. About 75 have had svchost problems. The previous fixes have resolved all except three.

I understand people wanting to vent, we have lost hundreds of hours on this, but I want to say thank you to the guys working to fix this. IT work is a thankless job. So, again, from one IT guy to another, Thank you, your work is very much appreciated.

About the dell latitude d620. We had svchost problems with those to. It was a conflict with the biometric scanner software and Mcafee 8.0. Running a mcafee patch or moving to 8.5 resolved the problem.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Migrosofty — Mon, 14 May 2007 23:24:06 GMT

Hi there

I have found another bug in the latest IE7-Update (KB931768). When installed, Outlook XP or Outlook 2003 can get very, very slow when starting or opening a e-mail, calendar or contact item. The strange thing is that this error does not occur every time Outlook is used - but most of the time. Opening a e-mail from the inbox can last up to 300 seconds - which drives my customers crazy... After deinstalling the IE7-Update, everything works fine. I have found other IT Pro's in the net having the same or similar problems with Outlook XP / 2003. The CPU utilizations gets up to 100% for a long time when a above mentioned action is initiated.

Since the svchost.exe problem occured at the same time as the Outlook problem did, it was not obvious that the 100% CPU problem is related to the svchost.exe or the IE7 problem.

Many of my customers experienced both problems so I first had to solve the svchost.exe error - I did so with completely disabling Windows Update and the related services (Automatic Update & BITS) through a GPO. After that, no more svchost.exe problems showed up, but then the Outlook problem got more attention. After deinstalling all Office updates from the last patch day, the Outlook 100% CPU problem was still there so I search the net and found a post with similar problems (which where solved by deinstalling the IE7-Patch (KB931768)). This also helped in my case; but just imagine: deinstalling a patch manually on more than 100 PCs!! This brings back the old days where we waited up to two or three months before we installed ANY patch or service pack for NT4 or Windows 2000 ....

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Lee — Tue, 15 May 2007 11:18:32 GMT

In reply to Martin B:

Hi - yes Martin - I've seen this scenario on Vista / Office 2003.

It's happened twice - gone into safe mode, rebooted seemed to "cure" it for a few days...KB927891 is for XP only so can't apply the patch. Grrrrrrr! Lee

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Ayeohx — Tue, 15 May 2007 11:57:21 GMT

So what's causing this problem? A conflict between the Automatic Update engine and the Microsoft Update engine or is the Microsoft Update engine stalling during Office updates/detection (and is it specifically Office 2003)?

And has this happen to anyone that does not have (or ever had) an Office 2003 application (even Word 2003) installed on their machine?

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Lee - http://www.tools4windows.net — Tue, 15 May 2007 13:54:17 GMT

Ayeohx : I've only ever seen it on XP / Vista that has Office 2003 installed. None of our customers have been brave enough to roll out Vista / Office 2007 yet!

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Tim Wiser — Tue, 15 May 2007 15:24:38 GMT

Hate to say it guys but I still have this problem on a handful of machines despite having installed the WindowsXP-KB927891-v3-x86-ENU.exe and the new AU client.

Are there any errors or suchlike that appear in the %windir%\windowsupdate.log file that can help diagnose what's going on?

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Vilius — Tue, 15 May 2007 18:03:33 GMT

One more thing. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927891 says that there should be a file msi31.dll, but there is no such file anywhere after installing the patch. Moreover the version and date is different.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Vilius — Tue, 15 May 2007 18:04:14 GMT

I ment, the version of msi.dll not msi31.dll

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Henry — Tue, 15 May 2007 21:12:52 GMT

WOW. THANK YOU FOR THIS SITE! 3 wasted days on reformatting two X41t's, and I was blaming the Chinese first. But we finally isolated it to MU, googled that, and found you guys! Thanks! Turning off MU has worked like a charm.

Hey, here's the pattern I've noticed to the machines that work vs. the machines that don't... Dual core/Duo machines don't choke, and single core processors don't handle the svchost death.

In a duo machine you can watch SVCHOST eat 50% of the CPU for quite awhile and then it eventually comes back. Meanwhile, Windows still has 50% to play with. With a single core SVCHOST pegs out at 100% and you have no time for anything else.

My 2 cents. But thanks again for all the comments confirming that it's Microsoft's fault.

It cracks me up that every post on the net where someone has a problem with Windows usually degenerates into a pro linux discussion, which build is better, etc. I'm glad some folks stayed on topic and have brought this through!

Thanks again very much,

Henry

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Dean — Tue, 15 May 2007 22:23:00 GMT

We had this problem at 2 of our locations and we were able to stop the user complaints by disabling all of the Office updates for those facilities. Since then everything seems to be working OK, we are still patching Windows, .NET, etc.

Hope this helps - I am keeping my fingers crossed that the hotfix and new AU client solve our problems!

Dean

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Sudheer [MSFT] — Tue, 15 May 2007 22:54:22 GMT

Vilius,

KB927891 modifies <windows dir>\system32\msi.dll

There wont be any msi31.dll on the machine.

Everyone,

Please see

http://blogs.technet.com/wsus/archive/2007/05/15/srvhost-msi-issue-follow-up.aspx

for a follow-up to this post regarding what is expected with the fix and verifying that you have the 3.0 client installed properly.

If you are experiencing machine lock-ups, please follow the instructions in the follow-up post and we can investigate the issue.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Sean — Wed, 16 May 2007 02:45:55 GMT

Hmm.. Thank god I've got a small network to run, overwork has prevented me from upgrading from SUS and manual installation of Office 2003 patches doesn't kill too much of my time. STBY?

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Micheal Espinola Jr — Wed, 16 May 2007 17:49:33 GMT

I wrote up two scripts (for 32-bit and 64-bit clients) that address all the known resolutions for these issues, and installs/fixes them silently against specified lists of computer names.

http://www.espinola.net/wiki/So_you_want_to_fix_all_your_WSUS_clients

HTH

Bugfix update for MSI 3.1

InstallSite Blog — Wed, 16 May 2007 22:57:32 GMT

Microsoft released updated versions of Windows Installer 3.1 to fix a problem that could cause Windows

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Vilius — Wed, 16 May 2007 23:40:41 GMT

Micheal Espinola Jr: your script just changes default AU client from MU to WU. I can be done by going to MU website and selecting "Change default client" in the administration menu. Also see comment #954618 and #947672 on this.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

romulus15 — Thu, 17 May 2007 05:22:02 GMT

I'm having svchost (wuauclt thread) take up 100% CPU using SBS 2003 R2 WSUS v2. This problem only happens on our Windows 2000 clients though.

There seems to be no resonse from Microsoft on patching this on a 2000 machine. Is there any hope to resolving this issue on 2k?

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Joe — Thu, 17 May 2007 11:04:01 GMT

Hi guys,

Around about 30 machines out of 200 have suffered this issue over the last couple of weeks and the following resolved the issue for me.

- Kill the svchost.exe process when the machine is booted up and starts taking 100% CPU usage

- Install the latest WUA (windows update agent)

- Followed by installing the KB927891 patch

- Reboot the machine and when it is logged in again after a couple of minutes the svchost.exe will again take around 99% CPU usage BUT should allow you to open applications (with a noticeable but slight delay) and this process should dissapear after around 5-10 mins

- When it has dropped the CPU usage, hit start > shut down and it should ask you to install updates and then shut down.

- Install the updates, switch the machine back on when it has finished installing updates and has shut down

- From here on you should have no further problems.

This has been successful for me and hopefully will help others out.

New Windows Update Agent (WUA) 3.0 is now available

SMS and MOM Supportability — Thu, 17 May 2007 20:28:18 GMT

A recent update to the Windows Update Agent to version 3.0 has been released. This update can help improve

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

John A — Fri, 18 May 2007 22:53:41 GMT

I had several machines recently with this svchost/msi cpu problem. One of them I restored to the original OEM image, and still had the problem.

I then remembered before when I'd had issues with Windows Update failing to install patches, and came across a post about using MS sigverif to find unsigned secure catalog files.

When I ran sigverif, it pointed to the 'timestamp' files in 2 folders below c:\windows\system32\catroot. One folder only had the timestamp file, so I deleted the whole folder. The other folder had lots of catalog files, and I just deleted the timestamp file.

Microsoft Update worked fine after doing this.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Micheal Espinola Jr — Sat, 19 May 2007 06:55:24 GMT

Vilius: That is not what my script does at all. Could you please explain what part of the script you beleive does that?

To clarify - My script automates the recommended patch installs as well as the flushing of the SoftwareDistribution folder and the re-registration of WUA components - which are all recommended steps from Microsoft.

I simply automated the process.

re: Update on svchost/msi performance issue and 3.0 Client distribution plan

Charles Senne — Sat, 19 May 2007 18:11:38 GMT

I believe Micheal, what is happening with your script is this....

Your script looks for the patches, if they're installed, it skips it, but it still messes with the dll's which in essence, reregisters it as WU, not MU. Here's my workaround...