Windows 7 svchost.exe (netsvcs) 1,000,000k+ memory usage

[stephx]

Lately my computer has been running painfully slow, and the Task Manager identifies svchost.exe as the problem. I have tried antivirus scans, but there does not seem to be any viruses. I have checked other posts about this issue, but I haven't found any solutions that have fixed the problem for me. If I end the process, it comes back within a couple minutes and returns to nearly or over 1,000,000k memory usage on the Task Manager. I can hardly use my computer for anything while this process is active. Might anyone be able to help me solve this problem?

 

[Joe S]

Is Windows update running and downloading in the background? Windows update has been extremely slow lately at times. MS is trying to slip on the Windows 10 upgrade whick is over 6G.
Joe

 

[stephx]

No, I haven't seen that happening. This has been going on for quite some time now, months I think.

 

[Neemobeer]

This is most likely Windows Update as it runs in one of the generic svchost.exe service containers. You can verify it using Process Explorer or if you don't want to download a tool, open a command prompt and type tasklist /SVC /FO TABLE | findstr "wuauserv svchost" and locate the PID (the number) that corresponds to the svchost.exe that has wuauserv in it. Then open task manager > details tab and compare the PID with the svchost using a lot of memory they will probably match up.

 

[stephx]

Yeah, that's it. How do I stop it? I try to end the process and it either just comes back a few minutes later, or it says 'access is denied'.

 

[Neemobeer]

You don't really, you can just let if finish. Windows uses BITS to download and BITS only uses idle bandwidth to download so if you just let it run it should finish in 6 -8 hours depending on your bandwidth.

 

[stephx]

Well this has been going on for months now, and svchost is still hogging all my memory. I have like a 50 MBPS download speed, so I really doubt it's been trying to download something all this time. What else might it be?

 

[Neemobeer]

Well it is Windows Updates, and the WX upgrade has been rolling out in stages so yes it probably has been going on for months. The only thing you could try if your download is stuck is to

• Press Winkey + r type services.msc
• Stop the Windows Update and Background Intelligent Transfer Service
• Delete C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution and restart the Windows Update
• Let it re-download everything

 

[stephx]

Well, that seems to fix the problem. Thanks.