From InfoWorld: We've seen the same problem reported over and over for Windows XP users trying to update their computers: Windows Update redlines (more accurately, the XP Windows Update agent WUAUCLT.EXE running in a SVCHOST wrapper redlines), taking 100 percent of the CPU for five, 10, 15 minutes -- up to an hour or two.
If you have Automatic Update enabled on your computer, that means every time you re-boot Windows XP your machine can lock up for hours on end; pull the plug, and the same thing happens over again. On Friday night we (finally) received an official explanation that describes why the problem happens, along with a description of what Microsoft is doing to resolve it and a promise that it'll get fixed "as soon as possible."
When I last reported on the WinXP SVCHOST redlining, Microsoft thought it had solved the problem in the November Black Tuesday set of patches. Wrong. The problem popped up in November and it's gotten worse in December, with lengthy discussions on dozens of forums.
Hard to tell how many people are affected, but with something like half a billion Windows XP machines out there still connected to the Internet, it's a horrendous problem. At least in my experiences, the vast majority of people who experience the lockup have no idea why their machines go out to la-la land.
The facile solution -- and it works! -- is to never turn off your Windows XP machine, don't update it, don't patch it, just leave it alone and it'll work fine.
More sophisticated WinXP customers turn off Automatic Update and just refrain from installing any new patches. That works, too, but with WinXP the target of all sorts of attacks -- and WinXP end-of-support on the horizon in April -- it's hardly a viable solution.
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