Quick Tip: Archeage Stuck On "Applying"... [FIX]

Happy Launch Day To All Archeageans! [I'm not sure what they would be called... I'm just going to use that word I made up just now, and hope it doesn't offend any of them] Just a Quick Tip to all players of Archeage, especially those of you trying to install or patch the game through Trion's Launcher application and finding it stuck on "Applying..." and your hard drive going crazy, for literally hours on end if allowed to, with no seeming progress - here's one thing that could be causing this:

Applying... Forever

Long Version

While updating Archeage through Trion's game launcher, Glyph, my computer seemed to be almost 'locked up', just sitting there, the progress bar not moving at all. All it said was: "Applying.." and it didn't seem to be making any progress - but my hard drive light was almost solid, it was so darn busy... So, I did a little poking around, and here are some things I found:

Microsoft's Resource Monitor, showing that the CPU usage of Microsoft's Security Essentials executable (MsMpEnd.exe) is not using up much CPU (top set of two green arrows); but it is using up most of the throughput of the hard drive (bottom set of two green arrows). Click to see Full Size

Opening the built-into-Windows Resource Monitor, to see what could be keeping Windows so busy, I saw that the executable MSMPENG.EXE was going crazy. It wasn't hogging the CPU in usage, it was constantly accessing the hard drive, but the drive didn't seem to have problems (the response time was ok, etc) - so that indicates that it probably wasn't the hard drive's fault. Since MsMpEng.exe is part of the Windows Anti-Spyware/Anti-Virus utilities (Windows Defender/Microsoft Security Essentials/etc) I wondered if it was scanning some huge patch/update file that the game was trying to use. 

Windows Explorer, showing the large temporary files that Glyph/Archeage is creating, which seem to be causing problems with Microsoft's Security Essentials. Click to see Full Size

A quick trip to the Temporary Folder of Windows later... and there it was: a few large files, one of them 15GB alone. Well, no wonder everything seems like it is locking up solid. I made the choice to trust Trion, that they weren't doing anything untoward on my system, that they were merely trying to patch their game, and I temporarily disabled Microsoft Security Essentials, which I had installed on my computer. 

Microsoft Security Essentials, showing where to go to Disable the Real-Time Protection (temporarily), so that the Archeage patching done in Trion's Glyph game launcher can continue and complete. Click to see Full Size

'Et Voila' ["And There It Is"]... everything was working again, the patch completes in mere seconds and the game started up... 

Short Version

Part of how the Trion's game launcher Glyph appears to be set up is, it will patch/update Archeage by creating huge temporary files, which at least one virus scanner (Microsoft Security Essentials) chews and chews on forever (scanning the large files slowly). This gives the appearance that 'nothing is happening'. Disabling your anti-virus [in my case, I was running MSE] temporarily, should allow the patch to continue and the game should start soon after...

In my mind, the button wasn't saying "OK" anymore.

While this fix [more of a workaround really, until Trion and/or Anti-Virus Software companies actually fix whatever is causing the problem] is somewhat of a security risk (disabling any security on your system always is), it does appear to solve the issue and allow the patching to continue and the game to run. As long as Trion isn't trying anything 'funny' - which I doubt they would, as it would negatively affect their publicity and possible future income - then disabling your own anti-virus protection, for this one purpose, should be ok [sorry Trion, 'it's not you ..it's me', I am just cautious towards telling others to disable any Security their systems may have]. In the end, I hope it works for you all, as it did for me.

Have fun playing Archeage and See You In The Game!