Windows Update is using a lot of memory these days it seems

[VirtualLarry]

I'm experiencing it right now. I've done a reinstall from the hidden partition on my stepson's messed up laptop. 157 updates have been installing for 4+ hours at this point. WU is using 77% of Physical Memory at this instant. On 141 of 157 and I'm wondering if it is ever going to get done.

Is your Commit Charge larger than your physical RAM? Has CPU usage dwindled to basically nothing? REBOOT! Then do Windows Update again, and again, until it's done. If you reboot, it should finish installing the updates that it has already gone through. I had the same thing happen to me.

 

[boomerang]

Is your Commit Charge larger than your physical RAM? Has CPU usage dwindled to basically nothing? REBOOT! Then do Windows Update again, and again, until it's done. If you reboot, it should finish installing the updates that it has already gone through. I had the same thing happen to me.

I saw your post just now, too late to check what you'd suggested. I do know that CPU usage was moving in about the 50% to 70% range though. I get what you're saying about the reboot. Essentially it's forcing the system to update in smaller chunks of updates instead of a massive block of updates and I understand the reasoning behind that. Wished I'd thought of that myself earlier.

 

[tidy]

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[Chiropteran]

I've never had this problem on my main desktop, which is running 8.1 Pro w/ 32GB of RAM.

I also haven't seen this problem on my Stream 7 Win 8.1 tablet with 1 GB of RAM.

/shrug

 

[VirtualLarry]

I've never had this problem on my main desktop, which is running 8.1 Pro w/ 32GB of RAM.

I also haven't seen this problem on my Stream 7 Win 8.1 tablet with 1 GB of RAM.

/shrug

I thought that this thread was about Windows 7 Updates.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I saw your post just now, too late to check what you'd suggested. I do know that CPU usage was moving in about the 50% to 70% range though. I get what you're saying about the reboot. Essentially it's forcing the system to update in smaller chunks of updates instead of a massive block of updates and I understand the reasoning behind that. Wished I'd thought of that myself earlier.

If your CPU usage is still noticeable, then don't reboot, Windows Update is actually doing something.

 

[DTMAce]

I rebuild, repair, build new systems, etc all the time. For the past few months now, I have noticed a HUGE trend with issues downloading updates on Windows 7 machines. Home, Pro, doesn't seem to matter. The issue is more prevalent on 64 bit systems.

Just built one today in fact. AMD 8 core gaming rig. 8GB of DDR3 1600, SSD Samsung EVO, R9 280 series card, etc etc.

Doing windows update after installing Windows 7 home 64 bit and base drivers. Getting out of memory errors constantly. It has eaten up 7.4 GB of memory in "Trusted Installer". Constantly.

Now, I have had this issue on systems with 4GB. Systems with 6GB. Systems with and without virtual memory enabled (SSD enabled systems with more 8 or more GB of ram I usually disable virtual memory)

I have a 12 GB laptop as well. Even IT had issues when I reloaded Windows 7 with it eating up nearly 10GB out of 12!!!

Didn't give me any errors, but seriously, what the hell is up with this lately?

I see it all the time now... On nearly any Windows 7 64 bit system if Im doing mass updates from a fresh reinstall or install. Doesn't seem to matter if its OEM or Retail, image recovered, whatever.

Anyone have any real insight to the problem?

Just throwing it out there.

Thanks.

 

[Gunbuster]

I also wonder why trusted installer sit chugging away at 50%+ CPU for a good 15 minutes or more after it says please reboot... Is it doing something important?

 

[RampantAndroid]

No, I'm not seeing any warning, and I'm talking about an already up-to-date computer running a Windows Update check.

Have you narrowed the memory usage down to the svchost process which windows update resides in?

 

[Closetmonkey]

I'm having the same issue. One instance of svchost was using over 675MB of RAM. Stopped the windows update service and it magically dropped to 14MB. 2GB of RAM installed, and only Firefox open, using around 500MB. You'd think that ~1.5GB would be enough for the system and updates, but apparently not. I'm stuck between using the board max of 4GB and building a new pc and installing 32GB just so I can do one thing at a time without lag.

Also, I only have one optional update available. Apparently it wasn't downloading or installing updates, as there are none showing, and the last installed update was 9 days ago. Seems like something is going wrong.

 

[postmortemIA]

I had to buy 2GB of more RAM for my folks PC because this would erat over 1GB of RAM and bring the whole PC to crawl. As soon as I added extra RAM, service usage went down, and it was never near 1GB again... definitely some bug on Microsoft's side.

 

[escrow4]

I had to buy 2GB of more RAM for my folks PC because this would erat over 1GB of RAM and bring the whole PC to crawl. As soon as I added extra RAM, service usage went down, and it was never near 1GB again... definitely some bug on Microsoft's side.

You need 8GB for a box that is actually usable and will last now anyway. 4GB is the absolute bare minimum.

 

[mikeymikec]

Have you narrowed the memory usage down to the svchost process which windows update resides in?

Of course.

You need 8GB for a box that is actually usable and will last now anyway. 4GB is the absolute bare minimum.

The thing is, in probably the first year of Win7's release, Windows Update's memory usage was about 300MB. The other day I saw Win7's WU memory usage hit 1.7GB for just a daily scan of updates. Also, if 32-bit Windows is doing the same thing then they don't have the potential luxury of upgrading RAM. There are plenty of Win7 64 laptops out there that will only take 4GB RAM as well.

Win8 RTM does similar things, though Win81 doesn't yet. I suspect that the sheer amount of update information it has to process (ie. the number of updates that have ever been released for the OS in question), is the cause of the problem, which means that every MS OS that has a few years under its belt will require tonnes of otherwise rarely used memory purely so WU won't make the machine crawl during a check.

 

[Nana89]

Hello guys , i got a small problem here (big one )
Last night i finished system restoring to factory settings (virus there best solution) and since then am trying really hard to windows update .208 updates came up at first . It took like 8 hours unsuccessful then it just roll back it . Now there are 166 updates . I checked the catche and it said 10/11 i guess thats bad cause i have only 4GB ram . So i tried restarting . But system didnt restart and it continued . I only hope it doest roll back again and call it unsuccessful. I guess microsoft really is trying to force us thinking windows 10 is our best solution .

 

[mikeymikec]

I normally do all the .net 3.5x updates in one go then try installing 10-15 at a time.

 

[Nana89]

Stuck stage 3 56% it feels like 10 days past and when i post this in a sec jumps 100% wow thats a first

 

[sbpromania]

I had some problems with Windows Update, regarding low performance.

I tend to install the updates on certain dates, when I don't use the laptop.

 

[martinlee]

I am doing fresh install win7 home premium 64 and got low memory warnings, and windows update stopped responding.

All the updates failed as a result. Now I am wondering, could I have a bad stick of memory?

Goring to try memtest iso. But how to fix failed updates?

I guess it's time to check that, but reading this thread I am hoping maybe this is normal?

System only has 2gb ram. Built for my uncle who only surfs internet.

Maybe I need to start over again from scratch...

Any thoughts?

Thanks

 

[ArisVer]

With only 2GB of RAM you should install the 32-bit version. Or upgrade to 4GB or more.

 

[Magic Carpet]

With only 2GB of RAM you should install the 32-bit version. Or upgrade to 4GB or more.

This.

 

[postmortemIA]

Install one by one. You can find them online on microsoft's site by searching using KB number. If anything, you can get list of updates.

 

[tidy]

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[VirtualLarry]

I've had success installing just the .Net updates first, followed by the security updates, followed by IE11, followed by whatever straggling remaining security updates there are.

 

[Eolo]

PC Asus i5, 4 Gb RAM, Win7 Ultimate 64, fresh install.
When I got to the "out of memory" warning, at about 170 ouf of 212 updates, I just raised the swap file (on the run) to 8Gb (about doubled it), waited some minutes, after some waiting it was all complete.