May 12 2026 Windows update taking very long time

Discussion in 'Windows Virtual Machine' started by DavidC143, May 14, 2026 at 4:09 PM.

  1. DavidC143

    DavidC143 Bit poster

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    I'm installing the May 12, 2026 Windows update, which is a large cumulative update. The update has now been running for about 10 hours. Is anyone else seeing unusually long install times for this update?

    Setup:
    • Windows 11 Pro ARM
    • Parallels Desktop 26.3.1 (57396)
    • macOS Tahoe 26.4.1 on Mac mini M2 Pro

    The update started with visible Windows update messages, but during the current phase the Windows screen is completely blank. This phase is likely the "Windows Update: Servicing Phase 2 -- Offline Servicing," which uses a minimal boot graphics driver that Parallels does not display, so the screen stays black for this stage.

    Activity Monitor shows the VM is still working and not frozen:
    • ~102% CPU
    • CPU time increasing at wallclock rate
    • Context switches ~321/sec
    • Mach syscalls ~127/sec
    • Unix syscalls ~366/sec

    One more observation: the Parallels "Windows 11" process shows very large Virtual Memory usage (currently ~7.5 TB). This is normal on macOS. Virtual Memory grows continuously during long-running operations because macOS keeps reserving new address space for Parallels' memory‑mapped regions and never releases it until the Parallels process exits. It does *not* indicate a memory leak, and Real/Private memory remain small and stable.
     

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