windows update takes 25% of the cpu since today :(

You are welcome. I also got 7 updates only, low number. You should have waited a few days before installing, to make sure there are no problems with updates, but if you have no problems. then it should be fine.

yeah you are right :)
i wanted to put all this behind me^^^^
thanks again:)

Thank you johnny20, I was banging my head against the wall with this exact same issue and the kb3168965 update worked perfectly. I had gone through enough diagnostic steps (task manager, inspecting services running under the offending svchost process, running the resource monitor and seeing something funny in the wait chain, etc.) to figure out more-or-less what was causing the constant 25% cpu usage and knew it was something to do with windows update....

If I'm reading this situation correctly, windows update was hung up without the ability to check for updates properly because it lacked kb3168965, but without the ability to check for updates, my computer never knew it needed kb3168965. That's a very silly catch-22 on microsoft's part. The windows update diagnostic tool didn't catch the problem. The system update readiness tool wouldn't even run - it sat there spinning its wheels with no visible progress for several hours (far longer than the longest estimate I could find online).

Then I found this and manually installed kb3168965. I had to first disable windows update and disconnect from the net to prevent the problem from repeating itself during the manual install.... but 20 minutes later windows update is working great again. You're a lifesaver.

May I ask how you discovered this solution? How did you know to manually install kb3168965?

gregs said:

Thank you johnny20, I was banging my head against the wall with this exact same issue and the kb3168965 update worked perfectly. I had gone through enough diagnostic steps (task manager, inspecting services running under the offending svchost process, running the resource monitor and seeing something funny in the wait chain, etc.) to figure out more-or-less what was causing the constant 25% cpu usage and knew it was something to do with windows update....

If I'm reading this situation correctly, windows update was hung up without the ability to check for updates properly because it lacked kb3168965, but without the ability to check for updates, my computer never knew it needed kb3168965. That's a very silly catch-22 on microsoft's part. The windows update diagnostic tool didn't catch the problem. The system update readiness tool wouldn't even run - it sat there spinning its wheels with no visible progress for several hours (far longer than the longest estimate I could find online).

Then I found this and manually installed kb3168965. I had to first disable windows update and disconnect from the net to prevent the problem from repeating itself during the manual install.... but 20 minutes later windows update is working great again. You're a lifesaver.

May I ask how you discovered this solution? How did you know to manually install kb3168965?

You are welcome, glad it worked for you :)

How did I know? Well, last April I upgraded from Vista to 7. It was a nightmare, I had all kinds of driver and bios problems, and also had to search, find, and install 5 years worth of win7 updates. Let's just say for a couple of weeks I spent hours every day doing this. I have become used with win7 problems, created accounts on many forums, looked for and shared solutions. This is not something new, it was the same for the last couple of months where you needed to install a certain update to make sure the search wouldn't take forever. First it was the kb ending in 812, then, last month the kb ending in 1664 if I remember correctly.

What I noticed, that on my other computer that is set to automatic install updates (recommended), the taking forever problem is not present. It's just on this laptop, that is set to "check for updates but let me decide what to download and install", every month the search would take hours and come with no results. I have no idea why. Is your computer set to "automatic" or "check but let me choose"?

"If I'm reading this situation correctly, windows update was hung up without the ability to check for updates properly because it lacked kb3168965, but without the ability to check for updates, my computer never knew it needed kb3168965"

It had the ability to check but probably it would have taken couple of days to come up with results. The kb just made the search faster.

It's set to check but let me decide whether to install.

This is a brand new machine with a factory install of win7 pro - and it runs great otherwise with plenty of memory, i5, ssd - so when update wasn't functioning it made me panic a bit. I use another win7 machine that has never - not even once - experienced this issue. After this week's patch tuesday that other machine found the updates almost immediately and I've never had to mess with it. So my panic was mostly caused by what I thought was a strange anomaly on this new machine (based on my small sample size of 2).

I realize I'm preaching to the choir but it's totally not acceptable for windows update to hog 25% of my cpu for multiple hours and not show any results for its efforts.... A few minutes while it's checking is acceptable and expected behavior.... Multiple hours (turning into days) is not ok.

25% is not that bad. I have an older laptop with 2 cores only, so mine was at 50%. Plus the usual web browsing, antivirus, it would stay at near 100 percent for hours while looking for updates.

Both your machines set to check but let me decide, but only one has the problem? Can you check whether on the machine that works fine KB3161608 is installed or not? This one is also known to solve the hung problem.

Yes, both are configured the same way but no, the one that has always worked well does not have the 1608 update installed. I can see it sitting there in the "optional" queue and yet it still works fine. Fingers crossed and knock on wood that that continues.... I've been running that machine for a few years now and it's been perfect every time. Never a problem. That one is a home premium sp1 desktop whereas my current "problem" machine is pro sp1 laptop.

Actually one other thing just occurred to me. On my perfectly-functioning desktop, I've never installed any "optional" updates. Only important security updates. Its queue of optional updates is horrendously long. On the new laptop, however (it's actually a factory refurb), I can tell you that the refurb techs went in and installed every available update (including the win10 nagware which I had to uninstall) after they loaded the OS and sp1. That would have brought the updates current as of about December of last year based on the update history. Might there be something in one of those optional updates from pre-2016 that messes with windows update? That's the one major difference I can think of right now between those two machines.