Windows 10: Microsoft Block Level Backup and 'System' process suddenly making the system unusable

For about a week now when the automatic backup starts the computer becomes basically unusable because saving even small files now takes more than 30 seconds.Looking in Task Manager and Resource Monitor there are two processes using the hard drives, Block Level Backup and a suspiciously vague "System" process. They're accessing the C drive and the backup drive.Task Manager says they're only using about 30% of the hard drive bandwidth, though I don't know how Task Manager calculates that. It seems reading files, like loading programs, isn't slowed down too much, just saving data to the C drive i

:)

 

Bloatware updates make system unusable

A couple of things just occurred to me.

The way a software update works is in two steps. The first step is to
download the files, and the second step is to install the files. The
problem I've been describing is that installing the files for Windows
apps (bloatware) takes over the whole machine, and makes it almost
unusable.

The Windows OS updates are installed by requiring a restart, and then
the installation takes place during the restart ("23% completed --
don't turn off your computer"), and that take a few minutes or a
couple of hours, depending on the size of the update,

The bloatware updates are similar, except that they don't require a
restart. Instead they simply make your system almost unusable for a
couple of hours. In other words, the OS updates and the App updates
really both take control of the computer, but the OS updates do it in
the context of a restart.

That shouldn't happen. The app installation should just run in the
background, and allow everything else to run normally. The fact that
it's making the system almost unusable means that the installation is
running at a high priority. If it ran at a normal priority, then
maybe there wouldn't be any problem.

Well, it occurs to me that the Process Explorer program (from
sysinternals) has a "Priority" column. I have Process Explorer up all
the time anyway, so it's handy when there's a problem. So now I've
added the "Priority" column, and I've set the display to show
processes in decreasing order of priority. And wow, there's a bunch
of them running at priority 13 (high), and most of them running at 8
(normal). Interestingly, Firefox and Chrome run at priority 4 (low).

So anyway, next time I get an attack, I'll take a look at the Process
Explorer window, and maybe that will tell me who's causing the
problem. And maybe, just maybe, I can just set that process to normal
or low priority, and solve the problem. (Sorry, I may have crossed
the line into fantasy thinking, but I can't help myself.)

 

System process blocks Port 80

You clearly don't understand the problem here. But I was able to solve it by doing the following:

• Activate IIS
• In Services disable the IIS service
• Reboot
• Port 80 is no longer blocked by the System process

 

Bloatware updates make system unusable

You are quite right when you talk about distinguishing Windows Update and updating other "Bloatware". Even Windows "Modern" APPs are separate programs and shouldn't interfere with system operation and much less require reboot. Same goes for any other program you install but programmers got spoiled with all of ample and fast HW, lots of CPU cores, RAM and fast disks. If such a program requires a reboot upon an update/upgrade, that mostly means that is messing around with protected system files. System protection doesn't let them do anything while they are active and running, could be done only while system is rebooting. Some also install new or alter states of services also necessitating a restart.
Drivers behave in similar way, most often having to restart that particular piece of hardware.
Chances are that any of those are going to misbehave, but lets keep that in it's own context, not all of that is OS's fault. If you just blame OS for those things, you are just making it more difficult to troubleshoot as it may sidetrack you.