[Utilizer]

This is one of the reasons I never trusted that "Automatic Update" so-called "feature" function. Besides the fact that it sometimes resulted in crashing the machine, that is. Not much more info at the site, minor links there and other references.

[null and void]

Glad they finally got this fix done. It’s what? 4 months until they stop supporting XP at all?

[Excellence]

The fix also seems not to require any actions by Windows XP users or IT pros to take effect.

How is that? No update/install?

[knarf]

I don't use automatic updates ... never did after my BIL told me about the potential problems way back in 1998.

I always opted for the notification, so I could read it and decide for myself.

Having said that, the last year or so, when I shut my XPPro down, I would always get a SVCHOST IS SHUTTING DOWN popup, which was explained to me as;, the computer wanting to shut down faster than the software.

I'm no geek, so I accepted it.

Always hit 'end now' and never worried about lost data ... all I ever did was surf FR and .... never mind.

[tomkat]

yup, great timing .. kinda makes ya wonder 'why bother' ?

[onyx]

I get all kinds of notices from windows, but I learned the hard way to shut off their “Automatic Updates”.

[smokingfrog]

My XP laptop runs faster than greased lightning now.

[GeronL]

Its been forever since I had XP but I actually do remember SVCHOST and wondering what was taking resources back in the day. Its one of the few things I actually remember, but I do not remember it being a huge problem.

[bigbob]

Nice, but points out something I’ve always suspected, as I’ll bet this crap was going on behind the scenes even though I almost never use IE, just because it’s installed as part of Windoze.

[Hardastarboard]

OMFG!! I spent HOURS trying to fix this cluster disaster of a problem. It would hog the entire CPU, and then when you would kill the process it would still let you surf the net, but wouldn't let you watch YouTube, start AIM, and wouldn't manage the Sleep state. It would hibernate and then have to be rebooted to start again. Lather, rinse, repeat until you're ready to scream.

I thought I had a virus or something was wrong with my computer. How is it that this problem just showed up something like 10 - 15 years after XP was introduced? I'm beginning to think the Linux / Ubuntu guys are right.

[ShadowAce]

[relictele]

The fix involved stopping the system from perpetually checking Internet Explorer updates.

....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.

[RckyRaCoCo]

A while back was noticing a lot of hard drive activity on my old XP system. Downloaded a program called DkHardDrive to find out what program/tasks were beating on the hard drive. At that time it turned out to be some kind of indexing/other issue caused by the new AVG.

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...)

[cdcdawg]

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???

[JoeProBono]

[Secret Agent Man]

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.

[tacticalogic]

Why are there resource hogs, but there’s never any resource bacon?

[anonsquared]

I vote for taking all of Bill Gates’ billions of $s and using it to fix all of the crappy products he has foisted on consumers over the years.

[Robert357]

I've experienced this.

[spel_grammer_an_punct_polise]

So.....Microsoft is going to ‘fix’ a problem 12 years after the operating system was released and only three months before Microsoft stops supporting WindowsXP?

How magnanimous of Microsoft for being so forthcoming! I applaud them! /s

[CharlesWayneCT]

I actually experience that problem, and I just kill the svchost.exe whenever I first power up — once I see which one it is that is running wild.