| Aspect | Details | |--------|---------| | | preparation.exe | | Purpose | Pre-install checks & environment setup for VS2012 Update 5 | | High CPU | Normal for first 10 min; abnormal if >30 min | | Common Fixes | Run as admin, disable AV, clean temp, use ISO | | Ultimate Fix | Repair VS2012 base, then run Update 5 from ISO with /quiet |
High CPU or Disk UsageSometimes preparation.exe appears to hang, consuming high resources. This is often due to the tool scanning a very large project directory or a fragmented hard drive.Solution: Give the process at least 10–15 minutes to complete. If it persists, check your Task Manager for any "zombie" Visual Studio processes and kill them. visual studio 2012 update 5 preparationexe top
The progress bar jumped to 100%.
For enterprise environments where preparation.exe consistently fails, you can bypass its prerequisite check only if all dependencies are truly present. | Aspect | Details | |--------|---------| | | preparation