Solved New KVM based Win7Pro and 7.6.7600.320

[waTeim]

Like others, I am having a hard time with the newest windows update (.320). Also, similar to the
behavior seen by others is that "check for software updates" never returns -- well at least not
for several hours. I don't have the patience to wait longer than that.

Also the CPU use is seen to increase up to 50% and stay there continually. The responsible service is
svchost on behalf of windows update. I think it's merely 50% because when I redefine the VM to
have 1 core instead of 2, then the CPU usage is instead 100%, but when I increase the number of cores to
4, the CPU usage does not decrease to 25% -- perhaps windows 7 can't handle more than 2 cores.

I watched performance monitor file usage and did initially see some things take place -- especially after reboot, but this dies down to nothing while the CPU remained at 50% for no apparent reason.

Further any updates applied manually (e.g. KB047821) get similarly stuck as long as windows update is running. At first it appeared there was only a window of time that these things could be applied after
reboot, but then I found that following reboot, there are a number of startup tasks that occur, and
following Windows Defender, Windows Update will automatically start.

Turning off automatic Windows update prevents the above and the CPU remains near 0%.

I played briefly with setting the physical ram to various values and settled on 32GB with balloon to 48GB. This is enough to cache all files. Memory usage does not go over 41% (19GB). That might have some effect, but does not prevent the 50% CPU while doing essentially nothing aspect.

I would have applied the supposed update to the windows update update, but that apparently has been
removed by MS.

Attached is the CBS log for suggestions.

 

[NoelDP]

There are no actual errors in any of the CBS data back as far as 30th Aug - but there is some somewhat strange behaviour.
(Windows 7 can quite happily handle 8 cores, BTW)
What on earth are you doing to use that amount of RAM? I routinely run Win 7 VM's in 1.5GB RAM, and although it's a little slow, it's quite bearable. Since I'm limited to 8GB physical on bare metal, it leaves me with enough to have two open VM's and a fully-operative host.
When you're looking at the CPU usage of 50% that you quote - it that on the guest OS or the host? (I assume the guest?).

I'll need to review the CBS data later - but in the meantime please post the Event logs from the guest....
Open Event Viewer
click on the Windows logs entry in the left pane to expand it.
Now click on the Application entry - wait while it loads.
Click on 'File' in the menu bar and select Save...
Save the file as Appevt.evtx
Repeat for the System log
then zip both, and upload them.

 

[waTeim]

Hey thanks for the reply. The host system has quite a lot of memory, so 32GB is fine. I originally
started with less but increased it later because one of the the MS updates I read indicated a
possible fix was for resource contention. I wanted to eliminate the possibility of memory contention. Didn't help though.

Good deal on supporting multiple cores.

Yea the 50% CPU stat was taken from performance monitor.

Here's the event logs

 

[waTeim]

A small update. I looked at the CBS file and it appears it recognized a bunch of invalid files and so on and
apparently printed the remedy, and claimed that it was successful.

But I looked afterwards and found that it didn't actually accomplish what it claimed it did (like moved pending renames to a destination directory).

 

[waTeim]

An update.

Well after attempting to avoid the hours-long wait multiple times. I simply let it run, and that in fact (like for many) works. At the end of it, there were 211 updates available which are being installed as I type this -- downloading 991 MB 79% is taking quite a while (15 minutes as least) which is kind of strange as my internet connection is fast enough that downloading 991MB should only take about 2 minutes.

I'm not sure what the minimal thing to do it, but this is what I did...

1. Install from old (pre SP1 windows 7 pro ISO) -- I don't have a SP1 ISO, but that would probably have worked as well or better.
2. Apply the few of applicable immediate updates, but not SP1 via windows update, and then apply SP1 via ISO. In retrospect, this probably was not necessary, but was useful to control what windows update was doing.
3. Set windows update to manual -- don't automatically check/install updates.
4. Apply KB3083324 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3083324
5. Apply outstanding updates, this will possibly include a handful of .Net 4 updates
6. Update to IE11 not sure this one is necessary or not, but it removed several windows update errors over the course of my 10 attempts.
7. (Possibly run check-it); this will typically not find any errors, but also not have any sort of obvious effect either.
8. (Possibly unrelated optional) Remove all KVM non-essential definitions for cdrom, floppy for the particular VM.
9. Set power options to not sleep
10. Manually click on check for updates button
11. Let it run for (in my case) 15 hours.

The one thing that was completely unnecessary and possibly harmful: SURT.

 

[NoelDP]

SURT may have been unnecessary - but it definitely was NOT harmful.
Since you didn't post its logs, it's impossible for me to know whether it actually did anything at all in terms of system changes, but those changes it may have made (if any) would have been more likely to return the system to full functionality.

 

[waTeim]

I did post those logs actually, but like I said, there was no improvement over the course of multiple re-attempts both using and not using SURT, the outward effect was always the same. The only success was a scenario that did not involve application of SURT, however.

The assumption of SURT applicability is based in the idea that there is some os misconfiguration that occurs due to some error, but that otherwise the windows update system is correct. It appears this is an example of the opposite happening. The os is correctly configured, but the windows update software is incorrect, and that only from a combination of some subset of 211 updates is it finally cured.

 

[waTeim]

finishing up here to close out this error (after recently having reencountered it). Here's the fix

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3102810

 

[waTeim]

update to the update: the above does work until Microsoft broke things again in a recent update (approximately June 2016), however, KB3161647 appears to fix things (again).

I guess the takeaway here is there is nothing that SURT will fix in these cases; don't waste your time. Instead, it's a result of Microsoft and their buggy windows update updates which can only be fixed with yet other "magic" patches.