So it’s the end of a long Sunday which started later than expected (as I’d slept in despite my son’s best efforts to wake me with the ever-loud playback of YouTube videos). I’ve spent most of the day glaring at a computer screen but not for productive gain as it’s my family duty to fix the broken computers of the children/parents/siblings, except this time it’s been a looonnnnggg job which Windows XP is just aching to make so much worse.

When Windows XP is checking for updates, the svchost.exe process eats up an entire CPU core all in the quest to detect available updates. As it’s a fresh install of XP with SP3 slipstreamed in, it’s gonna take a while as it is. I know it’s the “Automatic Updates” service as stopping it cures the heavy CPU usage (and it will need the CPU to scan what is installed and what isn’t), but I’m in a bit of a rush here! Not to worry, as it’s a Dell, so I’ll let their update tool tell me what drivers I need… Except I need .net 3.5 installed. 250Mb later and I’m up and running. Except the modem driver isn’t a modem driver… It seems to be some modem-related software like a utility… So I’ll need Windows Update after all! Hm, I’d best leave it to scan for updates, it would have been finished by now if I hadn’t tinkered with it!

Wish me luck…