Occasionally a process named “WaaSMedicAgent.exe” will hog system resources after startup. It causes my hard drive to spin for four to five minutes at 100% utilization, bringing the whole system to its knees. According to Process Monitor, WaaSMedicAgent.exe is reading the master file table and a bunch of files from user directories.
For example, today Process Monitor showed “WaaSMedicAgent.exe” reading some source files from a programming tutorial I followed months ago. I saw it read some of my work documents even though I logged in on a different user account - it was in folders where I keep contracts, paystubs, tax receipts, patient medical records, &etc. I mean, it appears that it just went and read every single file in all of my user directories.
Why?
Presumably “WaaS” stands for Windows-as-a-Service, and “Medic” means it is some sort of diagnostic or repair utility. Maybe Windows is not used to being powered down and calls on the WaaSMedicAgent for diagnostic purposes (though I power down through the system menu). That still doesn’t explain why it would pour over my documents. Maybe it is doing disk defragmentation, but I don’t think it makes sense to defragment the hard drive on startup, when, you know, I definitely want to use the system.
~Max, Windows 20H2