PC Boots then writes giant datastore.edb file slowing the computer down

Solution 1:

I know it's way past the point of being able to provide a suitable solution for you now, but I have exactly the same thing with a Windows 7 machine at work. For future reference, you can always check the integrity of (/g) and/or defrag (/d) *.edb files with esentutl.exe.

e.g. esentutl.exe /d c:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\DataStore\DataStore.edb

If you are unable to run this command with "-1032" error, you can boot into safemode (without networking) and run the command from there. You might first need to run it with the /p switch to repair file corruption.

Solution 2:

RAMMap showed that C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\DataStore\DataStore.edb mapped file was wasting 400 Mb of my precious RAM. Moreover Windows Update was constantly slowing down the system in process of updating that huge file.

esentutl.exe just reduced DataStore.edb size from slightly more than 600 Mb to slightly less that 600 MB and proved to be useless in my case.

http://juneyourtech.blogspot.com/2013/06/datastoreedb-and-windows-vista.html states that deleting this file is also not an option as Windows Update would rebuild it to the same size of next run.

So I had to completely disable Windows Update Service autorun. This greatly lowered waste of RAM, CPU and disk IO. The system is much more responsive now.

See also How to schedule download of windows 7 updates? for a way to launch update using Windows Task Scheduler.

Update

Take a look also at Windows 7 SP1 Windows Update stuck checking for updates

Solution 3:

Expanding upon @mafbailey 's answer (And a big thanks to you, as well!) make sure to open the command prompt as an administrator when utilizing the following command line action to have the appropriate file permissions.

I'd have been stuck had I not known =)

esentutl.exe /d c:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\DataStore\DataStore.edb

Solution 4:

I have experienced the same problem with a slowly starting computer running w7 home edition. Opening email or firefox was frustrating.

On my computer, during start up, the anti virus program (windows essentials) seemed to be taking a lot of time on the datastore.edb file.

This link about "Improve PC Performance and Stability by Properly Configuring Anti-Virus" solved the slow start up problem for me.

The solution basically involves telling the virus scanner (windows essentials) to exclude checking this file. I did the other exclusions on the windows files as well. (but i'm fine with the scanners checking my photos, even though they should be safe)