More gnashing of teeth after Microsoft update brings PCs to a standstill

Whatever happened to support packs?

I think MS needs to go back to releasing support packs on a supposedly regular schedule. Updates to the windows update service can be put in a support pack instead of silently installed. If you want to use windows update, you have to be at a certain support pack level.

Corporations can test the SP before putting it in their environment. Security patches can still be released quickly via windowsupdate. And-big bonus-when you install a new windows machine you don't have to spend 12 hours online with dozens of security holes on your machine until you can get all the security patches installed and reboot (of course) a dozen times.

I hear Vista Sp1 is due out eventually. Why not XP SP3? Let's rollup all those security fixes, test them, and then release it!

That's called malware.

Software that installs silently without the user's knowledge or consent, and even if the user explicitly denies permission? There's a term for that in this industry: I believe it's known as "malware". Or, as Google & Co would have it, "badware."

Maybe Google should redirect search results pointing to microsoft.com to the stopbadware.org warning page instead. After all, this behaviour is in direct violation of stopbadware.org's guidelines, specifically:

Section I Para 2;

Section II Para A;

Section III Paras A, B, D, F, and G.

Maybe it's time Google applied the same rules to Microsoft as it does to all other websites with apps it classes as "badware". Microsoft need a decent kick up the bum and Google's the only bunch with the boots big enough to do it.

12 hours? sounds like you need Autopatcher.

I'll skip the obvious rant against MS and just say something useful.

Autopatcher XP is a 3rd party bundle of all the post SP2 updates with an installer that can be fully configured and automated. Also versions for Vista, 2000, Media Center....

After 4 years MS suddenly decides to crush them in a manner that angered tens of thousands of computer geeks.

Luckily the new version will ship with no MS patches, and will instead update its self from MS download servers.

Also the August 2007 release is still on the mirror sites.

Answer's simple folks.

Don't auto authorize patches and updates on your WSUS server. Saw this come through on the synch, declined it, no worries.

This is all BULLSHIT, who wrote this? Steve Jobs?

I administer as the Dir of IT, over 18,000 PC and a few Macs (that's all that are left) at a major school district in California. We have seen ZERO problems after the update, NONE on Windows XP, 2003 or Vista PC's ! I think those numbers (over 18,000) versus the paltry number this stories so-called "journalist" reporter quotes speaks for it's self ..... this story is BULLSHIT.

Frankly, I see this as a anti MS story plant by Apple PR or by an Mac zealot media writer.

With the few Macs we have left after YEARS of bugs, flaws, prematurely dead Logic Boards amongst other costly hardware failures, we have MORE problems after nearly every Apple OS X update that we ever have with our 18,000 plus Windows boxes.

You know what we call Macs? Just another PC Clone, but with a much more flaky OS at twice the price of a Win PC.

Hmmm....

I wondered why my PC asked me if I wanted to install updates before shutting down. I certainly didn't download any!

EVERYWHERE!

I'm at Rhodes University in South Africa, and its installed itself on every single workstation in the university. 90% of the machines don't have anything saved locally worth searching...!

This is absolutely insane.

Title

@Quinnum

lol - of course there is not, but this company thinks their customers are theirs forever and it reacts the way it likes - no other company could afford to do that.

@Chris C

Well, if you are in a situation where you can tell one or more software providers that you need it to run on that specific platform, then YOU MUST TELL THEM, otherwise IT IS YOUR FAULT! Who is even trying? I believe that there might be a few niche companies that could not start to migrate to linux/mac osx/solaris tomorrow, but MOST could! It would have been even easier had they not put all their eggs into one basket! I have been busy with companies migrating to OpenOffice, and their biggest fear was excel macros ... lol A first step before migrating other software to FOSS or platform independent software.

Migration will become easier, everybody is moving to web interfaces, we develop software and use j2ee with web interface ... we develop for firefox and port to ie!

Word game for you

"Trusting a company that's only interested in profits is bad. They are becoming more and more arrogant towards customers, and couldn't care less about problems with their software or their ways."

Try and make a sentence with the following:

Planet, You, On, Do, Live, What

What company isn't interested in profits (please read carefully before some idiot pips in with a name of a charity and subsequently gets flamed for it).

hang on a sec

where and when was this update released?? i have machines with XP sp2, server 2003 and vista. none of them has recieved this update (not found in add remove programs or in the update history) all machines are up to date. have i seemed to have missed something??!?

Quinnum connundrum

LOL

So cavemen went hunting to make money?

So societies formed to make money?

All labour is undertaken from a desire to advance mankind.

Agreed, many companies (and their staff?!) appear to have forgotten that.

You really SHOULD get out more!

Still using Windows?

Windows is so 1990s!

I installed it yesterday

...thinking it was an update to Windows Search, for which I very deliberately have indexing turned off.

Here is what I understand about it after a little playing about:

- You can disable the new search, but if you do, you can't search at all.

- You cannot turn off indexing, merely pause it for a while.

- There is no "pause until I turn it back on", only "pause for X amount of time". max(X) = 1 day.

- It appears that the search requires the index - I have found no fallback to a brute-force search.

- The indexing status display is unreliable. About 20 minutes after installation, the status was about 4000 indexed, 1000 to go. After 4 hours, it was 17000 indexed, 21000 to go. On the positive side, after the initial day or so of disk grinding, it does seem to have calmed down.

- For certain (but not all) Powerpoint files, the preview pane takes ages to render the preview, during which time, the UI is entirely unresponsive.

- Even though Firefox is my default browser, IE is used to preview HTML and other content (e.g. powerpoint files). Luckily, it does at least respect my disabling of ActiveX controls. I know because of the errors it displays.

- Microsoft's definition of "music files" does not include ogg vorbis, although they do show up if you select "everything".

People in Cloud-Cuckoo Land

yeah right wrote: "a company that has repeatedly shown they really don't give a damn about their customers"

Tim Bates wrote: "They are becoming more and more arrogant towards customers"

These are very odd statements. Perhaps MS don't do exactly what you'd, personally, like them to do, but to suggest they annoy their customers *on purpose* is just plain bizaare. Maybe you don't realise that they get their money from their customers?

Unexpected but actually quite good

Although I too got caught out by the unexpected install of Windows Desktop Search (I assume it got incorrectly flagged as a Critical Update) and had my infrastructure brought to its knees for a while whilst the indexer ran on all the Desktops I look after it is actually quite useful.

Wondered what that was...

Was easy enough to get rid of though.

@Chris c

Your uninformed Linux is already used everywhere including data centers and supercomputers there isn't anything important it doesn't have a program to accomplish you are simply talking out your ass.

Proof of concept.

First they see what they can sneek onto poeple's machines, then they "update" everyone to Vista.

What apps are misssing from Linux?

I am becoming increasingl tired of people saying that Linux doesn't support, or that ISV's haven't written software to run on it.

For instance, I was using a SAP platinum gui on SuSE more than 4 years ago, is this not classed as expensive?

With the uptake of Java and Web based access to apps,I fail to see how this argument stands firm any longer.

- Oh! and by the way, M$ suck eggs. An admin should have complete control over his managed estate, and visibility of every patch/update being applied to it. If M$ continue to treat their customers like this, I really, can't see any future for them, especailly since I just purchase iWork '08 and it seriously rocks, makes Office look like pish.

Mustard with it ?

The only thing really worrying is that MS really can do anything

they want with machines that run windows.

If they can .. what's preventing the NSA and other spying agencies

of getting in just as discretly as they did and plant software ?

Or for that matter , disable all microsoft rinning computers in case of

cyber warfare ?

Think about it .. it aint all that farfetched ..

WSUS2 auto-approved it

I just got back in the office, after a day out and found a machine I was half way through configuring prompting to patch. So I checked it out, and found this... then as I'd never approved any form of Windows Search through our WSUS I checked the settings there.

It'd been automatically downloaded, and approved for installation on all my machine groups without any intervention by us. If we'd had it set to install patches every night, then I'd now be having to clean it up.

That's what people should be annoyed about, the fact that MS bypassed the reviewing stage that any serious sysadmin would go through with any changes to their systems. That they took it on themselves that this would be an improvement to hundreds of servers who never have anyone on the console and so never even use it.

If it had gotten loose, I can imagine it would be currently using a hell of a lot of cycles indexing the TB of data it would now of found.

Erm...

I write several large, expensive packages for Nightclubs, Theatres etc I wont say what it does but the investment in hardware for the software is large. In some situations the software needs more resorces than can be provided, and hence a lot is on bleeding edge kit.

That OSX cant support

That Linux doesnt Support yet

That Windows supports NOW

I see no sane reason why I should be coding for anything other than Windows. I see no reason to rewrite 10 years of code to support a minority OS and my customers are happy with that. There's a Linux port going on out of sheer interest and I have to say its going to take a LONG time. I have no desire to waste my time porting drivers for hardware.

My sales are small, customer base smaller still and there is no sane way for me to justify the time, effort and expense to do the porting. Especially when the only people that can benefit are going to get shot in the foot with the next hardware upgrade.

If you are going to take the mickey out of people for using windows bear in mind.

Its the Dominant OS

It has the best hardware support

Its easier to code for

It has the fastest design cycle for my application

There is no Hardware Lock-In, I can buy a Dell or get my own hardware.

Horses for courses. All my servers are Linux so I'm not a Windows Zealot and I'm debating getting a MacBook soon. Flame away about how stupid and blinkered I am

@Chris C & Webster P

I work for a large department, and I'm not talking about a small number of PCs here. I also worked with other big or small companies.

From what I've seen, it is people like you who give M$ green light to do whatever it wants. you do not need to give in, as customer, M$ should listen to you, not the reverse. Yes, it is your fault.

It is true that some software are windows only, but most of time, not everyone uses them. Say if only accounting people required windows to do their work, there is no reason why everyone else has to use it too.

My work is (part of IT division) to support our business system, everything can go wrong will go wrong with M$ software. A lot of the problem are far beyond any reasonable explanation apart form "it is M$".

When I spoke with our external IT service provider, the only disadvantage they could think to go majority Linux desktop is "users will requires more training", plus they may not be able to mess up their PCs. Well, our average users, will not tell any difference between Windows or a Ubuntu Linux, and since when "user cannot mess up their PCs" a disadvantage?

More FUD from the MS bashers

Looks like the Linux and Mac PR firms are busy today desperately spreading lies about the greatest computer company that ever existed.

I have had absolutely no problem at all with Vista.

None.

Browse the web? No problem. Send email? No problem. Write a grammatically perfect note to the milkman in Microsoft Word 2007? No problem.

So there you go. THIS IS A NONE ISSUE.

Even the guy with 18,000 PCs had NO PROBLEM (except for his Macs of course but what else could you expect).

Oh if you want to steal someone's IP then I daresay you may experience a little difficulty.

But if you are honest like most of us you will have NO PROBLEM.

Deployment

People are saying that people shouldn't just let WSUS run and roll out patches without double checking. However it does seem odd that Local Search seems to have been grabbed by WSUS and flagged automatically for installation - without intervention by the Administrator.

Forget all the fucking arguments about Linux or Windows or Macs - it is getting rather pathetic to see every discussion turn into "My OS is brilliant, yours is a pile of crap".. its getting extremely boring and frankly is dragging the whole of The Register down to the rest of the IT news sites which are full of fanbois of all persuasions who have NOTHING useful to say

What the hell is going on when a NON-CRITICAL bolt on is apparently flagged for automatic installation ... surely THAT is the question here and can ANYONE explain why this is apparently acceptable or allowable?