What's The Deal With Microsoft Lately?

Charles2222 · Post by **Charles2222** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 6:14 pm

Why is there so many blamed Windows/IE updates (security etc.)? I mean I'm getting one practically every day.

Moltke71 · Post by **Moltke71** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 7:40 pm

Charles_22 wrote:Why is there so many blamed Windows/IE updates (security etc.)? I mean I'm getting one practically every day.

It could be security but I hope you're not getting them via e-mail. Those are bogus and are dangerous.

Hertston · Post by **Hertston** » Tue Oct 28, 2003 9:24 pm

Hmmm... they have been fairly frequent recently due to a rush of security issues, but nothing like "practically every day" - maybe every two or three weeks.

Charles2222 · Post by **Charles2222** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 1:46 am

No, they're not emails, as I have automatic update running, only I have it delay in the systray until I'm ready to deal with it. I was starting to think they were sending the same ones over and over for soem reason, but I compared the last two and they weren't the same.

These things are literally every couple of days, if not every day. I download them when I get a good chance, but there's no way they're every 2-3 weeks. Every 2-3 weeks is what it used to be; not for the last 4 weeks or so.

Hertston · Post by **Hertston** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 3:07 am

I dunno then. I use the automatic update too, and as I said, it's every couple of weeks or so. What version of Windows are you running as a matter of interest ?

Marc von Martial · Post by **Marc von Martial** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 5:12 am

Microsoft announced a few weeks ago to be more on top with security patches. Here in Germany they even plan to put "Upgrade CDs" (IIRC for free) in the big supermarkets.

Bundy Rum · Post by **Bundy Rum** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 5:40 am

I have received 3 updates in 3 days here -All auto Update.

Charles2222 · Post by **Charles2222** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 7:35 am

Hertston wrote:I dunno then. I use the automatic update too, and as I said, it's every couple of weeks or so. What version of Windows are you running as a matter of interest ?

XP-HE

Charles2222 · Post by **Charles2222** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 7:35 am

Marc Schwanebeck wrote:Microsoft announced a few weeks ago to be more on top with security patches. Here in Germany they even plan to put "Upgrade CDs" (IIRC for free) in the big supermarkets.

Curious.

ravinhood · Post by **ravinhood** » Wed Oct 29, 2003 9:47 am

Well if you had never patched/updated "critical" updates, there are about 20 of them total that I know of so far. Your system might just be trying to catch up. I remember when I first got XP, I was downloading critical updates everyday for a bit, because I didn't want to sit there 30 hours for all the updates at once. heh

Charles2222 · Post by **Charles2222** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 6:23 am

ravinhood wrote:Well if you had never patched/updated "critical" updates, there are about 20 of them total that I know of so far. Your system might just be trying to catch up. I remember when I first got XP, I was downloading critical updates everyday for a bit, because I didn't want to sit there 30 hours for all the updates at once. heh

Only problem with that outlook, is that my W2000 at work has been the same way and that W2000 has been running for at least the last 1 1/2 years there. I got another this morning here at home.

ravinhood · Post by **ravinhood** » Thu Oct 30, 2003 9:15 pm

Are you "rebooting" your system after the updates? Just about all of them require a reboot after they update your system files. If you are not rebooting and your system stays on all the time, then the updater is not recognizing the updates as being implemented. Gotta reboot after every update.

Charles2222 · Post by **Charles2222** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 4:35 pm

ravinhood wrote:Are you "rebooting" your system after the updates? Just about all of them require a reboot after they update your system files. If you are not rebooting and your system stays on all the time, then the updater is not recognizing the updates as being implemented. Gotta reboot after every update.

Yes and no. I don't reboot, nor does it force me, but 95% of the time I delay downloading this sort of thing until I'm ready to turn the unit completely off. All computers I use go off at least once a day. For the times I've ever updated anything, be that Microsoft updates or not, and it asked me to reboot, I always take the reboot, because the two or three times I decided to delay the reboot the update never took. Like I said, my XP here, and the W2000 at work are both being 'besieged' but for some odd reason the one on the XP isn't going into the reboot routine, while the one at work is (Oops, just had another one pop up!).

My Symantec virus updates are also not forcing reboots, but then it's on auto-automatic update as I think of it, because it will just show a message that a download arrived, but I never see any downlaod software kick in (just like with these Microsoft upadtes). The only difference being that one is directed to actually download, while the other sits in the systray until I'm ready for it. Since I' ve had XP I've always had it this way, and before that I never used auto-updates, so maybe it's just a peculiarity of this and/or it being a different system.

mglsharkson · Post by **mglsharkson** » Fri Oct 31, 2003 7:27 pm

I gave up on the auto updates for same reason (every day updates)
I turn it off and use big fix from zdnet.com (free program)
that one just gives you the critical ones, not all of them
and I notice lately spam mail claiming to be from MS with updates, I never look at those
MGL

Frank W. · Post by **Frank W.** » Sat Nov 01, 2003 4:55 am

no prob there for me.

still using 98 no updates anymore for this one

Charles2222 · Post by **Charles2222** » Sun Nov 02, 2003 4:29 pm

mglsharkson wrote:I gave up on the auto updates for same reason (every day updates)
I turn it off and use big fix from zdnet.com (free program)
that one just gives you the critical ones, not all of them
and I notice lately spam mail claiming to be from MS with updates, I never look at those
MGL

Well it's good to see I'm not losing my wits anyway. I'll put your approach into due consideration. When I had 98SE that's the way I did it, but back then I was doing so without any knowledge of any possible detriment of doing it that way.

Charles2222 · Post by **Charles2222** » Sun Nov 02, 2003 4:31 pm

Frank W. wrote:no prob there for me.

still using 98 no updates anymore for this one

Yeah, I was starting to think that might be the reason why some people aren't seeing what I'm seeing.

Charles2222 · Post by **Charles2222** » Mon Nov 03, 2003 8:13 am

I have an update. I believe it was this morning that I got yet another blasted update. I know through some of these recent updates I neglectec to disable my firewall and virus protection, but I've been doing it at least week earlier than when this thread started. Supposedly these updates either won't take or are at least in question as to whether they'll work. Only problem is, as I alluded to before, that there doesn't appear any download software when the downlaod is supposedly going on, while at work on the W2000 it does. Funny thing is I naver disable the virus protection at work to do this.

I looked at today's update, and it turns out it was one of the ones I'd noticed earlier where the top update was the same (an 8750 or something). I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had checked them before, as I said, and the top one was not this one. One thought comes to mind: What if the top update isn't always the top one? Then it might appear that the few updates listed were not the same when they were (the window commonly only shows the top update unless you scroll down).

Well, I decided to go to Microsoft direct and download updates that way, as this was getting ridiculous. In so doing it was obvious that at least one of the categories were two updates behind. Now guess what happens? The blasted Windows download pops up like you'd expect, and it asked me to reboot my computer like you'd expect. Hmm.

I'm not sure why the OS download works in one sense and not in another (I do have a download manager different from the OS one). But maybe it's a little awry because I made some registry changes to dismantle the OS one I don't want. I mean it's a pretty big hassle at times for your download software to be downloading the same file the OS one is doing. The registry change has helped this situation to be kept to a minimum, but there are times when for some reason the downloader I want to use doesn't kick in, but then the OS one will. I have noticed over the years through different OS's that to download security updates always results in the OS downloader coming up, so for it to do that is no big surprise, but for no downloader to work at all on these auto-downloads is a bit screwy.

This ring any bells?

What's The Deal With Microsoft Lately?

What's The Deal With Microsoft Lately?

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