Fix Windows Update Looking Forever For AntiSpam Updates

Posted in Windows Server by Steve Sinchak

I experienced a strange error with Windows Update and Exchange 2007 AntiSpam updates on Windows Server 2008. When I enabled Exchange AntiSpam updates Windows Update would never stop looking for updates.  The host process for Windows Update, Svchost.exe, would run at 100% of one CPU core and never stop.  I had to kill the process in Task Manager. It was like there was an infinite loop condition somewhere in the code. When I disabled AntiSpam updates in Exchange Windows Update functioned properly again.

The root cause of the problem was Windows Update and Microsoft Update.  To fix issue I had to disable and re-enable antispam updates.  This can be done by opening the Exchange Management Shell and run:

Disable-AntiSpamUpdates

and then

Enable-AntiSpamUpdates -Identity <mail server> -IPReputationUpdatesEnabled $true -UpdateMode Automatic -SpamSignatureUpdatesEnabled $True

Next, I had to reinstall the Windows Update and Microsoft Update components.  Open up a command prompt and run:

net stop wuauserv

cd %systemroot%

ren SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old

net start wuauserv

Finally just manually run Windows Update and re-enroll in Microsoft Update again and everything should now work properly.

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