wuauclt/hourglass every 15 seconds

Tried elsewhere and no replies so I thought I'd try here in the hope someone has some idea.

I noticed on my father's XP machine that the hourglass materializes every 15 seconds or so then vanishes after a few seconds. Looking at Task manager I see that wuauclt--a Windows Update process--appears when the hourglass does and vanishes itself very quickly. Any idea what could be causing this? I scanned for viruses with both AV and malwarebytes and nothing came up.

Thanks all.

VFN

Go into Control Panel then Windows Update and set to Never Check for Updates. It's XP. They're going to quit updating it anyway.

See if the hourglass goes away.

I'll try that when I get over there again, although I'm not going to keep it off. I know Microsoft plans to drop support in April but April isn't here yet.

Thanks

VFN said:

I'll try that when I get over there again, although I'm not going to keep it off. I know Microsoft plans to drop support in April but April isn't here yet.

Thanks

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I dunno'. I got by with XP Pro SP2 for quite some time. I prefer to put on fixes in Service Packs, and even then I try to get the machine with the SP already on. Unless there's a specific fix I need. Then I'll get that one. The more things you change in one shot the harder it is to diagnose when it breaks. At least the SPs have some testing as a group over a period of time.

What about security updates though?

VFN said:

What about security updates though?

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What about them? Just because they say "security" in the description doesn't mean they can't hose your system. A hosed system makes me insecure.

Well, you're a sophisticated user. Most people don't have the knowledge to decide what to opt out of.

VFN said:

Well, you're a sophisticated user. Most people don't have the knowledge to decide what to opt out of.

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I understand your feeling. But what about this? If I can't figure out what caused a problem when 20 fixes got put on at once and I've been programming PCs since 1986, how is the less sophisticated user going to diagnose it when the machine is hosed?

Edit: ordinarily I'd say run it how you feel most comfortable. But the hourglass every 15 seconds may make the decision for you. Unless one of the fixes happens to fix it. Which could happen. Sometimes there's an update for Windows update. But it seems late in the game for them to fix it now.