Hi folks, I noticed an 'issue' with this host last week when it was attempting to automatically download the latest MS Critical updates. The little yellow shield appeared in the task bar saying 'downloading updates 0% complete'. It stayed like that for ages (over an hour) and finally dissapeared. When I noticed it had gone, I checked the Windows update history and saw that the latest updates had failed to download.

I was then at home that evening using this host and noticed the same thing. THe yellow update shield was at 0% and not moving. There was no network activity. Out of interest I started playing around with running proceses to see if anything happened.

As soon as I disabeled BOINC my network activity jumped up and the updates started downloading. When I reset BOINC to run based on preferences, the updates froze again.

I was able to replicate this error on my computer at work the next day.

These are 2 seperate computer on 2 different network connections. Both runnig BOINC 4.19 and both of 0which were able to download the updates after BOINC was disabeled.

Has anyone else noticed this problem?? ..or am I just loosing it?!

cheers,

Paul

[edit]
I have only noticed this on Win XP clients. My Windowsn 2000 Clients have been able to download the automatic udpates while BOINC was running..
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I guess there are 2 possible reasons:

1. you are not on broadband, meaning the downloads are not that quick
2. as SP2 of Win XP is set normally to download updates automatically, a hughe numbers of PC's were connected to the download servers of Microsoft given a hard time over the internet to download updates.

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Best greetings, Thierry

> I guess there are 2 possible reasons:
>
> 1. you are not on broadband, meaning the downloads are not that quick
> 2. as SP2 of Win XP is set normally to download updates automatically, a hughe
> numbers of PC's were connected to the download servers of Microsoft given a
> hard time over the internet to download updates.
>
>
3. (and most likely) The automatic update runs at a very low priority and can not get any CPU time with BOINC (or any DC program) running. I never really noticed any problems but then I do not like the updates happening automatically.

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I think it would be number '3' of the below suggestions.

I am on broadband so downloads should be reasonably quick. Also, as soon as I disabeled BOINC, the download started flying trough so I don't think it was a resource / bandwidth issue on the MS side.

I reckon the automatic udpates must be also on low priority on XPSP2... does not seem to effect autoupdate on WIn2k.

cheers for the help guys!

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This is caused by SP2. During the RC1 testing last year I noticed that downloads crawled along at 100kb an hour on a 512kb broadband link. I pointed this out to Microsoft and it seems that Automatic updates detect how much processor percentage you are using and if the machine is busy downloads in slow time. Otherwise the downloads happen at normal speed.
The advantage is that gamers don't suddenly find a Windows update popping up when they are about to shoot someone. But for the rest of us it is a pain.

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> This is caused by SP2. During the RC1 testing last year I noticed that
> downloads crawled along at 100kb an hour on a 512kb broadband link. I pointed
> this out to Microsoft and it seems that Automatic updates detect how much
> processor percentage you are using and if the machine is busy downloads in
> slow time. Otherwise the downloads happen at normal speed.
> The advantage is that gamers don't suddenly find a Windows update popping up
> when they are about to shoot someone. But for the rest of us it is a pain.
>

well that would explain it alright! Cheers for the info. Perhaps one of the developers could come up with a little trick for getting around this in a later version of BOINC.... somehow!

Anyway, for the minute I have set this machine to use only 1 CPU, this means it will never get to 100% usage. The other machine isn't hyperthreading but I can shut down BOINC on it form time to time when using some apps at work so it can download its updates at that time (even if a little later than released).

thanks for the info!

Paul.

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> > This is caused by SP2. During the RC1 testing last year I noticed that



> > when they are about to shoot someone. But for the rest of us it is a
> pain.
> >
>
> well that would explain it alright! Cheers for the info. Perhaps one of the
> developers could come up with a little trick for getting around this in a
> later version of BOINC.... somehow!
>



> can download its updates at that time (even if a little later than released).
>
> thanks for the info!
>
> Paul.
>

From what I've observed S@H/BOINC is pretty sensitive to giving up processor time to other applications when needed. I suggest that Microsoft should talk to the SETI people and learn how to detect whether their download can use more processor time instead of just looking at the current usage. (Maybe check priority too?) After all, S@H runs with a low priority and I wouldn't expect that any of the games that demand system performance are running at a low priority.

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