Microsoft Rolls Out Fix for Performance Issues Affecting Windows Server 2019
Published: Sep 12, 2024
Key Takeaways:
- Microsoft has addressed a bug in Windows Server 2019 that was triggered by the August 2024 Patch Tuesday updates.
- This bug was previously causing performance issues such as high CPU usage and system slowdowns.
- It specifically affected systems running antivirus scans on the Windows system folder.
Microsoft has issued a fix for a bug that was previously causing performance issues on Windows Server 2019. The company confirmed on the Windows release health dashboard that this issue affected users who installed the August 2024 Patch Tuesday updates.
Last month, IT administrators began reporting that the KB5041578 update causes certain Windows Server machines to slow down, become unresponsive, and experience high CPU usage, especially with Cryptographic Services. This bug primarily affects enterprise devices running antivirus scans on the Windows system folder.
“A limited number of organizations reported that the issue was observed when the device was running an Antivirus software which performs scans against the ‘%systemroot%\system32\catroot2’ folder for Windows updates, due to an error with catalog enumeration. Our investigations so far indicate that this issue is limited to some specific scenarios,” Microsoft explained.
According to Microsoft, Windows admins might notice increased CPU usage, disk latency, and overall reduced performance on their Windows Server 2019 devices. Additionally, Cryptographic Services (CryptSVC) may fail to start, which can affect security-related functions. Administrators might also see issues such as a black screen at boot, prolonged startup times, or unresponsiveness.
How to fix Windows Server 2019 performance issues
On September 10, Microsoft released a patch (KB5043050) to fix performance issues on all affected Windows Server 2019 machines. The company advises IT admins to install this latest security update to resolve this problem on their devices.
Microsoft also suggests that IT admins use the Group Policy Editor to apply the fix manually. To do this, they should deploy the Known Issue Rollback on affected servers by going to the Local Computer Policy on the domain controller and selecting the Windows version. Finally, reboot the device to apply the group policy setting. You can check out this support page to learn more about deploying and configuring KIR Group Policies.