svchost/wuauclt.exe 100% cpu usage

[CHR1S]

On one PC only we are getting 100% CPU usage when wuauclt.exe runs at start up and during its detection cycle. Once the cycle has finished its all back to normal but this can take 10 minutes or more.
I've googled it etc and found no real explanation or solution, anyone ever encountered it before?

Thanks

Chris

[Geoff]

I've found this happen when it's checking Office. Deselecting Office in the products section of the WSUS server seems to make the problem go away.

[CHR1S]

Kind of defeats the object of WSUS tho

[Geoff]

What happens if you manually take the machine to the windows/office update sites and update it manually?

[Slartibartfast]

Does the machine have access to the original Office installation source?

If it is on a network share, make sure that the relevant groups have read access.

[CHR1S]

Yeh, its a teachers machine with limited restrictions and its a managed software msi.

Havent taken it to the website yet... will try it but what diffrence will it make?

[Geoff]

It might be getting 'stuck' on an update. If you go to the website logged in as admin you should be able to install all the updates it needs regardless of what state it's in.

[CHR1S]

Its a possibility, ill give it at try and let you know.

Thanks

[jclientelle]

Well, I have not found out how to get rid of it, but if you go into task manager and set wuauclt.exe priority to low system runs faster. Joe

[thom]

I have had a similar problem but I can't find the full solution.
This should remove any corrupted updates
Stop the WUAU Service
Delete "c:\windows\softwaredistribution" folder
Start the WUAU service
I'll keep a look out for that fix

[DMcCoy]

If the issue is just CPU usage being high, as I understand it, there is no fix. It is by design, the only hotfixes affect crashing and extremely long scan times.

Windows update takes a few minutes without office and slows the machine, but it is still usable.

Windows update with office will invoke the msi installer process to scan for the office patches, consuming all cpu for extended periods of time, this is unusable.

Two options

1) Wait
2) Turn off office updates on wsus.

I went for 2.

[browolf]

this happened on most of our admin machines since last thursday :-S

[Michael]

This WSUS Faq might help.

[Michael]

Thinking about it, it is a coincidence Geoff said it's to do with Office. There were some Excel updates released this month (March).

If it's happening on just one machine, I would leave Office enabled in WSUS and manually run Microsoft Update on the one workstation.

[ajbritton]

For what it's worth, my home laptop has been fine for a couple of years until I put Office 2003 on it a few days ago. Now suddenly I'm hit with the WUAUCLT 100% bug. Very brief analysis of WindowsUpdate.log certainly reveals activity relating to Office components. Coincidence? Hmmmm.....