Fix for Windows Modules Installer (TiWorker.exe) System Hanging

This morning I was busy doing my work when all of sudden I noticed unusual lag. In a few seconds my brand new Windows 8.1 system came to a standstill. After painfully going through an extremely sluggish Windows interface and opening Task Manager, I finally figured out that a process TiWorker.exe was taking up all the CPU power. Apparently in Windows 8 and 8.1, one of the auto-update components called Windows Modules Installer (TiWorker.exe) can create problems at times you don’t expect and consumes more than its share of system resources without any prior warning.

Usually Windows Modules Installer will release the system resources as soon as it has finished updating whatever module it was working with and leave a stable Windows system for you. But if you do not want to wait for half an hour (perhaps more) for it to finish its work and stare at the computer monitor, then you can follow these simple steps to take care of Windows Modules Installer and shut it down:

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc key combination to open the Task Manager. Locate the “Windows Modules Installer” process and click on the End Task button. This process will re-spawn again and again so keep terminating it every 10 seconds to be able to work with your Windows PC (or it will freeze your system).
2. Press Win+R to open the Run dialog. Type services.msc in the Run dialog and press Enter. This will open the Services management interface.
3. Locate the service named Windows Update, right-click on it and select Stop. This will halt the service responsible for launching the TiWorker.exe program.
4. Double-click on the Windows Update service in the Service manager interface. Select Startup type to be Disabled and click on the OK button.
5. That’s it, now you can work with your computer without being interrupted by the Windows Modules Installer. After you are done working, just reverse all the steps so that Windows can install updates it wants.

Conclusion: If the Windows Modules Installer (TiWorker.exe) is interfering in your work on your Windows 8/8.1 PC, then you can temporarily disable it and go on with your work. This can save you from the annoying situations when this service freezes your PC while you need to finish some work on it.