Windows Update Slowdowns Since January 2018

[Jody Thornton]

Just interesting reading here on MSFN, where a forum member has extensively tested the speed differences before and after applying updates since January 2018. He does use a Windows 7 and an Windows 8.1 system, which both exhibit the same symptoms.

Windows 8.1 - Patch Performance Findings, Not Surpisingly The Latest Patches are Costly! - Windows 8 - MSFN

Just wonder if anyone is seeing the same symptoms on Windows 7 after updating over the last six months.
(and I definitely mean especially if you bypass the Spectre and Meltdown mitigations.)

 

[townsbg]

The last roll up I installed on my primary computer was January's and it's been even longer for my server. No issues with my primary computer. I can have issues with my server but it is older and slower. My VMs are running fine except for 2016 however I don't actually do much with them other than testing or legacy apps.

 

[Jody Thornton]

Hmmmmm - thanks townbg. Sounds like you're of the same thinking NoelC is. Well it will be interesting if anyone, went ahead with updates and saw slowdowns. I felt like it has slowed down, but I want just want to separate perception from fact, you know?

 

[Cr00zng]

It's lot of work to document performance changes caused by updates, not many people go through the trouble of performance testing Windows updates. Even if they do, they take it in to account the applications, drivers, etc., updates' impact to the performance of the system.

The fact is that as the technology improves, all the software is getting more and more bloated. Almost all of the software on the system has telemetry "feature", that slows the system down. Even nVidia drivers install the telemetry "feature" by default. All of the telemetries have a performance hit on the system performance, especially if if you take the combined telemetry impact to the system.

Security patches, like the Meltdown and Spectre, etc., provide protection against exploits by disabling certain function of the system. Then there is security protection software, like AV and others, that is another performance hit on the system.

Take for example Malwarebytes 3.x... Starting up MS Office 2013 applications slowed down opening them by 3-4 seconds.

Tested my system with Apptimer with Malwarebytes disabled:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\WINWORD.EXE - 4 executions
1.1403
0.7185
0.7810
0.7653

With Malwarebytes enabled:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\WINWORD.EXE - 4 executions
5.2186
4.4686
0.7493
4.6407

Contacting Malwarebytes support led to nowhere, they have stated that less than five seconds performance on the system is acceptable. Not on my system...

Not trying to excuse MS, it's their updates after all. The point is that other parts of the system come in to play as well...