By way of background, I’m running XP Home SP2 which has been kept right up to date including this week’s Patch Tuesday. And I’ve got Win auto-updates active in notify-only mode.
Since the updates this week, I’ve been getting frequent requests for Svchost to access the internet, typically when I first connect (dialup) but often when I’m disconnected. And if I check Process Explorer, Win Auto-update is active at the time, usually just for a short while.
If I return to the MS update page (via IE’s Tools), it agrees that there’s nothing new and all installations on Tuesday were successful.
Anyone else getting this, and know (or can intelligently guess) what’s happening? Scans indicate that my system’s apparently clean, although of course there’s no guarantees.
Don’t know if this helps you:
Internet Explorer requires access for svchost.exe, besides itself, for it to function properly.
‘svchost.exe’ (Generic Host Process for Win32 Services) - Provides DHCP and DNS Services. If svchost.exe is not granted permission to access the Internet, Internet Explorer will not be able to resolve host names.
Svchost is required for window update and it is it that dictates the connection time as it tries to balance the load on the update servers.
I, as a dial-up use also used to use the notify only option and there were occasions when it tok over three days (often in drips and drabs) to get all of the downloads as microsoft allocates when you can download them (how is beyond me), but if you disable svchost you can’t get your updates.
I now have windows update completely disabled and I get email notification from Shavlik on what updates have been released, I usually then go to the http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/updates/bulletins/default.mspx which gives more information and I then download the updates (one at a time) that I need.
This gives me control over the larger updates when using a dial-up connection. It is more of a pain doing this manually but it is then within ‘my’ control on ‘what’ is downloaded and ‘when.’
I also keep Belarc Advisor up to date and that will notify if I happen to have missed something. You could also use the Secunia tool to check what software needs an update.
Thanks, Tech. As you can see in my sig, I do use Comodo myself, so the problem could well be there for whatever reason.
And Dave and others, I do know that MS update uses Svchost. So far it’s the only internet service I’ve found that does use it, or at least that needs to request access, which is why I checked Process Explorer to see what was running. I’ve been online something over an hour this “trip”, and just got my fourth request for access which implies intervals of something like 15-20 minutes.
I think the problem is with Comodo firewall/ MS updates , lots of people ( including myself) have been reporting the same problem.I posted my worries on the Comodo forum ( read link for reply )The forum is scattered with recent various posts linked to this issue.Hope this allays your worries http://forums.comodo.com/help/windows_security_updates-t11771.0.html
Thanks, micky. If I’m reading the postings there correctly, it sounds like the suspected culprit is that Comodo’s “whitelist” hasn’t yet been updated to cover the new versions of various MS odds & ends from this week. Why I’m getting the MS update-check kicking in so often when there’s nothing new available is still a mystery.
