Re: Long delay before the updates appear

On Thu, 10 Aug 2006 02:14:36 -0400, "NewScience"
<newscience83@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Thanks for this detailed background. It's good info, but I don't
see an answer to my problem here. See below.
That is how it's suppose to work ... even though it takes a long time (on
some connections).

There are many variables involved:

1. Your connection speed
Cable modem - 550 KB/sec
2. Your CPU
Admittedly slow, AMD K6 3+
3. The load on MS server
4. The number of servers you go thru to get there.

That's just the connection side. The communication side is just as
involving:

1. Once you get connected up, svchost and wuaclt.exe talk with the other
side and pass initial information back and forth.
Is this where I'm seeing 98% of the cpu consumed for 6 minutes?
This is not normal, it can't be.
The basically use the
information in your C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\DataStore\DataStore.edb
file. This is a multi-partitioned file ... to view it use esentutl and dump
the meta-data.
I deleted the whole datastore, it still took 6 minutes, so I put the
old datastore back (my history was gone. It's a long history too,
255 updates since Nov 2000 ) Once I put it back, history restored.

The information is basically history information that is compared with the
info on MS. In this fashion, this is the only way MS determines what you
have and don't have. It also initially determines if your Update software
is up-to-date, in order to determine if it needs to update that first.

This is the first 6-7 minutes ... the more updates you have the longer it
takes.

Once the history is determined, MS then determines of the updates available,
which ones are pertinent to your system.

Then it initializes the Installation procedure and goes thru a series of
downloading packets to the C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download folder
as well as keeping the DataStore.edb file up-to-date as it proceeds.

Once everything is downloaded, it then proceeds to install.
After my updates were downloaded, as I said, another 6 or 7 minutes
was consumed while the process was "initializing"
Each folder
normally has a update folder that contains an update.exe and some *.inf
file. The *.inf file contains the information on reboot instructions
(whether the system should reboot after installation), and/or registry
modifications. All this information is logged in a C:\Windows\KB*.log file
as well as the C:\Windows\WindowsUpdate.log.

Once all this is done, the notification that the installations have been
performed and whether or not the system needs to be rebooted. If I'm doing
a manual download/install, I normally chose the Close button, so that I can
see the results of the downloads/installs. Then I manually reboot.

The problem that arises is when DLLs are not re-registered (when in one of
the packages), you run out of space, or you receive a partial download and
the connection is broken.

This really screws up the DataStore.edb file.

Regardless, I have yet to see where the Download folder gets cleaned up
after successful installs and you have these packages sitting around takeing
up space. Supposedly, I believe I read somewhere, where these folders/files
are removed after 45 days. Haven't seen it, but really haven't kept tabs.
Thanks for all this great info - One last thing, I'm on a dual boot
system. Win2k having the problem. However, if I boot 98SE,
ie6 / WU proceeds in a much more timely fashion.
The "checking for updates" takes about 25 seconds.
Dave

.

Loading