I'm thinking I should I give up on this machine.

Following on from my previous thread about Microsoft processes slowing my machine to a crawl [webmasterworld.com], i'm also seeing "Getting things ready – 70%" in the update status. It's taking 100% of disk processes, and makes the machine pretty much useless while it's going on.

Also, on a daily basis Microsoft's "phoning home" kills the machine. It seems to happen at specific times of the day, and, once again, kills the productivity by taking 100% of disk processes.

I've spent many years using this machine with no problems until one particular windows update. I can't pin it down precisely, but i also can't roll back as it was too long ago.

This is not how it should be.

If I change the machine it's not just the hardware that's the challenge to change, in fact, that's the easy part. It'll take me many weeks and probably months to get the software installations sorted.

</rant>

Sigh, thanks for listening, i feel better now. Sigh!