6 replies to this topic

[PeaBea]

Hi,

I've been using AutoPatcher for a few weeks, and have found it very helpful. Thanks for the effort that has gone into it.

But I am finding extraordinary time going into updating a machine. Typically I will install Win7's SP1 manually, then run WSUS Offline, and then follow up with Autopatcher. However if I have, say, 66 updates to install, and it says an hour fifteen minutes is necessary, it ends up taking the better part of four hours. Granted, I'm on an Intel Atom CPU @ 1.66, but still. If I were to update online it would be far faster than this.

Typically I find that the update speed is good for each file until it reaches the 98% mark. Then it just stalls, and wastes more time there than on the other 98% of the install.

Not sure what's going on, but I would like to speed this up. I'm downloading the latest autopatcher each time, so it should be current, and I've had this problem for weeks now.

Thanks.

[ViroMan]

The time that AP tells you it would take is the average time it takes to install an update or rather it used to be. Currently we just leave them all the same value as the template. We can't give you a specific install length due to not being able to hook into the update and tell how its doing. Some updates install in 5 seconds others can take a half hour. It also depends on what machine your using as well. Atom for instance will take significantly longer then any standard desktop.

On top of this... AP has an issue where it eats up CPU due to a badly coded wait loop. Even on my Q6600 cpu(quad core) it eats up an entire core just waiting for a patch to finish installing so it can start another one. I shudder to think what its doing to an Atom.

Rest assured it IS on my mind, since I was just talking with WAC about that like a day ago, and the next thing I will work on.

Edited by ViroMan, 09 January 2013 - 02:37 AM.

[PeaBea]

Thanks, I appreciate your response. The wait loop problem sounds germane, because it is at the tail end of each update that an interminable pause occurs. As for the Atom, and the overall time estimates, the fact that I can live update in one quarter the time or less would seem to render those factors irrelevant. I hope you can nail this problem, as I'm probably going to go back to online updating at this point, and will try back in a while. BTW, I'm having some forum problems. I'm subscribed to this thread, but received no notification. That's why I'm late coming back. And in the browser I'm using to access this forum - IE 10 beta on Win7 (not my normal browser, but tied to the email account I use here) - the Enter key does nothing in this text box (that's why there are no returns). Finally, I had a hard time signing up, evidently because gmail will not handle your mail. I finally realized this and used a different mail server. Thanks for all the good work you put into AP. Blessings.

[ViroMan]

Can't comment on the IE 10 since I don't have it but, you probably did get the gmail mail it probably went right to spam or something. There are lots of people signed up to this forum using gmail. As for the subscribe issue, I didn't know one existed. I will look into it, thanks.

[PeaBea]

You're quite right. I did find that forum verification in the spam folder. That one got by me. Thanks again.

[PeaBea]

You must have done some work on this. Using AP yesterday on a Dell Mini 1012 I saw a huge uptake in speed, due to much less idle time at the end of most of the updates. Thanks!

Is there any way to turn off update verification upon installation?

[ViroMan]

I changed the way it sits in the wait loop. To save the details I told it to rapidly sleep and wake up.

If you think the verification takes to long there are two options.

1) Delete RTI's before running install. (this will cause Autopatcher to think that all files are unofficial but, it will start much faster and have no other effects then saying its unofficial)
2) Start Autopatcher with the /fast command. <-- I put that in there for WAC since he has huge AIO disks. I forgot to mention that it had that ability. The fast command will SKIP MD5 checks but, will still do a size check(which is practically nothing time wise).