Windows XP Patch 811493 Causes System Slowdown

WINDOWS UPDATE USERS and prudent sys admins might have installed the latest Windows patch without a thought. That might not have been such a good idea. The patch is meant to fix a hole in Windows Messaging but can end up causing a severe performance degradation. The patch has been causing grief for many users. If you have Windows Update running on automatic and you’re experiencing a nasty slowdown on your system, you might want to try removing patch 811493. Users with the performance problems report that removing the patch fixes things.

The patch fixes a relatively minor security problem where an attacker would have to have physical access to the machine.

How to remove the patch:

Start > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > Find Windows XP Hotfix (SP2) Q811493 > Click Remove > ignore Warning > Reboot by clicking Finish.