Unresponsive systems after Windows Updates?

[DoubleCheese]

Our office is almost unusable at the moment. All our machines, albeit old banger Dell Optiplex's running XP Pro, are struggling to do anything since yesterday morning when we came in. They were absolutely fine on Tuesday.

They are all showing Windows Update signs but its taking HOURS to do them. Anyone else suffering the same?

 

[MonkeyBasher]

Yep.

My old banger XP machine did exactly the same thing when I switched it on last night.
It been like that for sometime though. If theres an "important" update on windows update. The machine becomes un useable until its downloaded, installed and rebooted a few times.

I gave up trying to do stuff last night. Rebooted the machine. Used task manager to quit as much as I could and then just left it "updating" overnight.
Forcing a windows upate failed as it was "insalling updates allready" just with no indication.
100% CPU usage and constant HD access.

The machine was being hammered that much that my browsers (when they launched) wouldnt go to any sites and the add/remove programs window woulndt even show.

After letting the updates finish this morning and rebooting a few times its fine again.