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August 26th, 2010 22:00
Microsoft Update Website might be slowing down older XP computers
People with older computers using XP, and one GB or less of RAM, who obtain MS updates from the Microsoft Update (MU) website, are reporting significant system slowdowns in the past few months that are resolved by switching back to the Windows Update (WU) website. Microsoft is aware of this problem, and investigating.
Details on this, plus info on how to switch back to WU (and implications of doing so) are found in this thread:
http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=44438
Windows operating systems after XP are not affected.
MU is the preferred update site, of course, and there are many causes of system slowdowns, including malware. But if all the above criteria apply to your situation, switching back to WU is a simple and reversible option worth trying.
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ky331
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August 27th, 2010 06:00
"Microsoft Update expands the [Windows update] service to download and install updates for other Microsoft software, such as Microsoft Office and Windows Live [as well as Silverlight & Microsoft Security Essentials"
So be advised that by (temporarily) reverting back to "merely" Windows Update, the above-mentioned items will no-longer be found.
I had been following this issue elsewhere... I'll try to post a link to it later today.
EDIT: Here's a link to a thread that was started elsewhere August 3rd. I had not cited it here earlier, because portions of it included a "personal debate" between some of its participants, so things there were very chaotic. But now that Joe has brought the matter to the attention of this forum, you might be interested in checking it out:
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistawu/thread/ef18ff87-db7f-4705-8105-33dcf9a9a03b/
Annie70
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August 27th, 2010 09:00
This sounds like a problem I have with an older XP machine so I will be following this thread.
joe53
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August 27th, 2010 14:00
Thanks for the link, ky331. It seems to confirm just about all the info in my post and link (at least by the end of your linked thread, personal differences of opinion expressed there aside).
Several users there have now also confirmed that by switching back to WU, their XP systems (all with lower amounts of RAM) were made usable again. They are talking about severe/crippling slowdowns here. Better a usable system with Windows updates only, than an unusable system at all using MU.
As I understand it, MSE would still auto-update its daily definitions (but not MSE patches) if using WU, so this would not be crippling to MSE.
For the monthly Patch Tuesday program fixes, one would still have to flip back temporarily to MU for all the other programs you list. Bit of a nuisance, but do-able. And there is still the problem of getting the out-of-cycle hot-fixes released (unless you read this forum).
I should have emphasized that only those with severe XP slowdowns consider this workaround, until MS resolves the problem. It is not a very satisfactory solution, nor a way to tweak your system merely to increase performace speed a bit. For example, I'm convinced my XP browsing is somewhat slower in recent months, but an extra second or two to open a website was not sufficient to tempt me to switch back to WU, after learning of this problem. Then again my XP rig has 2 GB of RAM.
The other obvious workaround is to add RAM, where-ever possible.
Stay tuned ...