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Since the AU, I've noticed background updaters (not Windows Update) simply run forever in the background without making any progress, and taking up about 13-15% of the CPU each (very uncommon for anything to use that much for long).

This is compounded by the fact that some programs simply won't "open" after being launched, even some installation EXEs. They'll simply sit in the background running forever, but going nowhere.

A good example is the Atom editor (and other Electron-based programs). It's updater will launch multiple processes... that are eating up CPU and doing nothing. Meanwhile it's installer ALSO launches, disappears to the background and just runs as a process forever, going nowhere.

Atom is just an example, there are other programs doing the same thing. Though, it seems background updaters seem to be the most commonly affected.

Almost every article I come across is related to the Anniversary Edition getting stuck, but nothing on my particular oddity.

Running in Win8 compatibility doesn't make any difference as far as I can tell.

Squish
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    Have you used task manager to kill the affected app, then reinstall it? It may be that the app requires a component and that installing the app will trigger that components install, fixing everything. .NET framework comes to mind for example. Also, reboot to safe mode at least once so no background apps launch. – LPChip Mar 11 '17 at 13:27
  • I haven't tried safe mode, yet. With Atom, at least, I did try to run the installer and install the latest release. But like I said above, the installer acts the same way. I'll watch the program launch, then it disappears and only the task is left running indefinitely in the background. – Squish Mar 11 '17 at 15:24
  • Reinstall means first completely uninstall, then install. Not just run the installer. Running the installer will simply make it detect that it already is installed and thus also consider that all its dependencies are already installed. – LPChip Mar 11 '17 at 17:04
  • I'm embarrassed to admit this, but, Safe Mode forced me to a realization. It was my AV. I don't know why it's behavior changed so drastically after a windows update, but that was the root. I had to manually add each process as an exception. Annoying, but benign. :/ – Squish Mar 12 '17 at 18:44
  • Antivirus should not cause such problems. Have you considered uninstalling then installing your AV? Might fix everything too and does not require you to exclude everything. – LPChip Mar 12 '17 at 18:57
  • I actually did that! It didn't help, haha. I upgraded it to a different version, so I had to un/reinstall. I've had to set several processes as exclusions to prevent the runaway/stalled process issue. – Squish Mar 21 '17 at 02:35

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It's embarrassing to admit but...

The problem was with my AV.

(Bitdefender in this case.)

I manually excluded the problematic processes and everything the issue was resolved. I don't know if it was direct cause/effect or if it was coincidence. But the behavior began after the Anniversary Edition update.

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Squish
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