April 16, 2004
Critical Updates
So, Microsoft issue four new patches for windows... Three are rated "critical" and one "important". You can download them using "Windows Update (WU)" or via the MS security microsite
I tried to download them using WU and failed miserably for all four. The reason? If you download them from the WU site you're just downloading installer stubs even though it doesn't tell you this. In the background the installer stubs download even more data so they can patch whatever they need to... The entire download from WU is approx 2Mb or so...
The ACTUAL download (I know because I've just had to go download them from the knowledgebase) is 16Mb. So, if you're using a personal firewall (and if not, why not) it will warn you about an outgoing connection. You need to allow the connection otherwise the installs will fail.
I really don't like this trend that software houses are following of just giving you an installer stub then downloading all other components using that. I can see why they would do this but I would MUCH rather just download the entire thing then install it locally than do a net-install.
I guess the downloads are incredibly slow because people are updating? On this occasion I recommend downloading the entire archives manually rather than letting WU do it. They appear to be especially sensitive for some reason and even if you do try to redownload and install they appear to still fail, at least thats what happened here...
(direct links to the KB articles)
And you know, when I was going through the pain of trying to keep this PC up-to-date I was thinking "I've NEVER had this problem using software update on my Mac."
Seriously considering going all-mac in the near(ish) future...
Thanks for that Garry. I managed to use Windows Update to install them but you are right, it lies about the amount of data it is downloading! It told me that it was downloading only 1.2 MB, then said it was installing when in fact it was downloading loads more files! In the past I have thought that my machine was crashing because the installation was taking so long. What really annoys me is that M$ treats us all as morons. Operating systems like OSX and Linux let you know what they are doing.
I would like to dispense with Windoze but I can't afford a Mac and the Linux desktop is just not good enough yet; in a few years maybe it will be?