Most PC users have probably had this complaint at some point during their user experience, and certainly anyone who was worked in support of users has heard it countless times: “My computer is too slow!”
Workstation slowness can be frustrating for anyone, and a tighter economy means reduced budgets, which makes it harder for IT departments to keep pace with technology. What then can one do to improve workstation performance when IT admins have to put off workstation upgrade or refresh projects? Well, there are all the usual tricks. Adding RAM may be a cost efficient alternative to replacing workstations or you could turn off all resource intensive visual effects and adjust Windows to run for best performance.
But there is another quick trick that has proven useful to members of the Support Practice Group: recreating the WSUS database on the workstation. The Windows Server Update Service is a useful and commonly used method of managing the distribution of Microsoft updates to user workstations, and its standard practice for SPG clients.
WSUS client workstations contact the server to determine which updates are required and approved, and keeps a log in the following file: c:WINDOWSSoftwareDistributionDatastoredatastore.edb. Overtime, this database file will grow, and as it grows it can begin to wear on performance. If you find a copy that has grown to 20-30+ MB, try renaming the file and allowing Windows to rebuild a copy from scratch. It’s a very quick and easy fix that can yield immediate benefits in workstation performance.