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Microsoft Quietly Fixes Windows XP Resource Hog Problem

Posted by timothy on from the hey-cut-that-out dept.

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."

26 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Bye bye Windows 8 hello xp

    1. Re:yes by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Personally I find it ironic as hell that they FINALLY fix this problem...with less than 4 months left before EOL. They did the same thing IIRC with Win2K and reminds me of Mozilla with their "There is NO memory leak, it "works for me", the problem is you"...denial right up until they quietly fixed the memory leak they had said didn't exist. I know I submitted my first "SVCHOST hangs system in XP" bug report back when I was running the RTM of XP X64 and XP in a dual boot back in...wow that was 2005, how time flies.

      I'm just glad I got my customers all switched to Win 7 ages ago so I won't have to play "race to the finish" with XP. There is a couple dual boots but the customers haven't booted into XP in ages so no worries there, I can just remove those next time they come in for work.

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  2. Over a decade by C18H27NO3+ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Windows XP has been out for 12 years and they just started to look into the problem last month?

    1. Re:Over a decade by MetalOne · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not only that, it really sounds like a couple people just did it on their vacation time because it personally annoyed them. Microsoft was not interested in actually putting it on a schedule to be fixed.

    2. Re:Over a decade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not only that, it really sounds like a couple people just did it on their vacation time because it personally annoyed them. Microsoft was not interested in actually putting it on a schedule to be fixed.

      It's funny how that sounds precisely like the bug tracker of any Linux distro.

    3. Re:Over a decade by DogDude · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Windows XP has been out for 12 years and they just started to look into the problem last month?

      Or you can look at it in another way: "They fixed a bug on a 12 year old OS?! Awesome!"

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    4. Re:Over a decade by 0123456 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's funny how that sounds precisely like the bug tracker of any Linux distro.

      I didn't pay $100 for Linux.

    5. Re:Over a decade by oscrivellodds · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The difference here is that the linux distros are free and MS charges big bucks for their OS's. When you pay for a product you expect it to work properly- well, maybe YOU don't, but I do.

    6. Re:Over a decade by ApplePy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I didn't pay $100 for Linux.

      Even then the bugs in Linux still get fixed faster.

      But yeah, when volunteers are giving their own time to build me a killer operating system, I'm not going to harass them about a schedule. I give them thanks and positive vibes and sometimes donations. I think we all expect more from paid developers... but we don't always get it.

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    7. Re:Over a decade by jones_supa · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The problem is that you don't get a killer operating system but a garbage operating system. I actually want to pay the $100 to Microsoft to not have to constantly worry about shit breaking.

      Linux is good for many purposes, but the desktop environments are essentially alpha quality software. Just the other day I tried adjusting the time of the Magic Lamp effect in its properties dialog under KDE. Whooptidoo, using anything than the default value gives me two magic lamp effects. And how about looking at the latest Xubuntu release, it shipped with broken sound indicator and broken power management. These are just completely silly and unnecessary regressions. If we start to talk about the Unity desktop (which represents a de facto Linux experience to many), it's just a huge bugfest which I don't even want to begin to talk about. It is also extremely slow.

      The declining quality of the Linux desktop should be taken very seriously. These are similar experiences to why I hated Windows back in the day when it still sucked. I want to use the most stable and fast software available.

    8. Re:Over a decade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > Unfortunately I don't waste mod points for AC's

      Dear Asshole,

      Mod points are supposed to be used to increase or decrease the visibility of a post for the readership. They are NOT intended to be used as a reward or punishment for an individual.

      HTH.

    9. Re:Over a decade by ApplePy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just the other day I tried adjusting the time of the Magic Lamp effect in its properties dialog under KDE.

      How many desktop effects does Windows have for you to play with and customize?

        If we start to talk about the Unity desktop (which represents a de facto Linux experience to many),

      Everyone knows Unity is crap. So is Windows 8. And mostly for the same reasons -- hubris, and a few clowns thinking they're going to change the fundamental paradigm behind the way millions of people use their computers.

      Well, except for the people who like Unity... some folks like choices. How many choices do you get with Windows?

      What you need to understand is that Linux is not a monolithic thing. Linux as a whole is not tainted because one release of one distro sucks -- because Linux is not a whole anything.

      The declining quality of the Linux desktop should be taken very seriously.

      That's a rather subjective and vague statement.

      As someone who has used Linux desktops almost exclusively for over 12 years now, I have to say I'm quite pleased with the improvements over that time. Well, except for Gnome 3.

      Anyway, if Windows floats your boat, great. I hope MS makes Windows for a long time, and that most folks continue to use it, so us Linux geeks can continue to feel smug about it. :)

      --
      That I'm right, and you don't like it, doesn't mean I'm a troll.
    10. Re: Over a decade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, I paid for it in negative time. Time I got back not futzing around with a different update mechanism for every app, all of which want to run simultaneously on reboot. Time not spent being bombarded with scareware ads from the various 'protection' rackets 'required' to run Windows smoothly. Time not spent tracking down and installing drivers for various bits of random hardware, because it just works out of the box. Time not spent rebooting for every update or every file that needed replacing while it was in use. Time not spent figuring out which 'analytic and debug log' needed to be activated to find out how to fix a problem. Time not spent waiting for Event Viewer to load slower than a flight sim. Time not

  3. Great to know that they fixed it! Finally. by mtthwbrnd · · Score: 3, Funny

    What next: Are they going to tackle the memory leaks in the Commodore 64 Operating System?

  4. windows embedded systems based on XP still get by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  5. Let me get this straight... by EdIII · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The performance issue was a constant check for updates.. for another program notorious for performance issues....

    This is why I really wish that Microsoft was *truly* forced to allow IE to be ripped out of their operating system completely.

    At this point, just give it up guys. You had over 10 years trying to make a browser. Let it go....

    1. Re:Let me get this straight... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Have you run the modern browsers on a recent OS?

      Firefox is usable again and uses the least amount of ram. IE starting with 9 started acting compliant and normal. I couldn't believe it in 2011. IE 11 has an issue at work because it is so standards compliant that it no longer supports legacy jscript code that launches IE specific flash. It runs like it should. This of course angers the MBAs and the luddities and slashdotters still think it must be the same as IE 6 and wont touch it!

      IE is actually good and if banks stopped feeding it broken IE code from last decade it would work. Firefox still is missing some things but I really like that it has true adblock. Google is so limited that adblock plus only stops it from appearing on the screen. The ads still run and track you and install malware. You just do not see it etc.

      FYI adblock plus now works with IE as well!

      Times are changing and I feel it is safe to say MS wont ever do an IE 6 again and can't. I do feel Chrome could become that role in the next couple of years if businesses give up after Windows 7 and go all tablet in 5 years. With Citrix that is a possibility if Windows 9 blows.

      --
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  6. Windows Server 2003 supported until mid-2015 by tepples · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Suppose if they didn't get it over the holiday and it wasn't done by April 8th, they could have perhaps saved themselves all the bother and turned off all update checks

    Windows Server 2003 is supported longer than Windows XP despite using the same update mechanism and nearly the same kernel. Extended support for Windows Server 2003 ends on 7/14/2015, and this problem will only get worse for servers over the last two and a half years of extended support. So there's a benefit for making a fix for Windows Server 2003. And if the same fix applies to Windows XP, it doesn't cost Microsoft that much to release the fix for both, and the gesture of goodwill could help deter companies from switching to GNU/Linux or OS X instead of buying Windows 8.1 + Classic Shell.

  7. I really thought they would never actually fix thi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  8. Exponential algorithm by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    I seem to remember reading that the time used by the previous update conflict resolution algorithm scales exponentially 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.

  9. EOL installation media by jones_supa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What I'd really like Microsoft to do for XP (and other versions of Windows) is when the product reaches end of life, create a new installation medium which includes all the updates. If anyone wants to do legacy installations of the OS in future for special purposes, that could be quite handy.

    1. Re:EOL installation media by Hamsterdan · · Score: 3, Informative

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

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

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  10. Re:I really thought they would never actually fix by HybridST · · Score: 5, Informative

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

    --
    Ever notice that Cobra Commander sounds an awful lot like Star scream?
  11. CO2 by tonywestonuk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wonder, how much Co2 has been released into the atmosphere, with this bug present on millions of computers, over decades, causing PC's to eat more electricity than they should.

  12. Re:CORRECTION by fluffy99 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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).

  13. Re:Thanks by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 3, Funny

    To be fair they usually don't do this kind of stuff.

    Right. Normally, if it's broken, it stays broken until a new product release really fucks it up...

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