Topic: Windows Updates - Arrgh!

[chorleydave]

Couldn't decide where to post this, so I've put it here, as I am suggesting that Windows Updates should be made illegal.

A few weeks' ago, I formatted my hard drives.  Everything has been running perfectly.  However, this evening (and against my better judgement) I opened Internet Explorer and went to the Windows Update site.  After scanning for updates, I chickened out, except that there was an updated driver available for my oldish sound card.  That can't damage anything, I thought to myself, so I decided to download it on its own.  Since then, whenever I passed the mouse over a sound sig, or tried to play a tune in Winamp, my system froze.  I ended up removing the driver and  reverting  to the original one.  Everything is fine now.

Why is the Windows Update site so lethal?  Many experts recommend that critical updates and security updates should be downloaded as and when they become available.  Do they actually make your system more secure?  Well, as they often make your system unusable I suppose they do.  I mean, you can't be hacked when the bloody thing doesn't work can you?

   :brick:

[Adept]

Couldn't agree with you more Dave.

Windows Update has been responsible for killing quite a few machines for me over the years, including a couple of servers >

Microsoft have recently changed to releasing patches on a monthly basis - supposedly giving them time to test the patches more thoroughly before releasing them. I'll believe it when I see it  

I test all the security patches on a sacifical server before deploying them these days. I will never install a recommended driver update from Microsoft. The best thing to do is to check the hardware manufacturer's website for their latest driver and install that instead. Microsoft's drivers tend not to be as feature-rich as the original driver and for all their claims about compatibility testing, tend not to be as compatible as the original.

[chorleydave]

The best thing to do is to check the hardware manufacturer's website for their latest driver and install that instead. Microsoft's drivers tend not to be as feature-rich as the original driver and for all their claims about compatibility testing, tend not to be as compatible as the original.

That's useful knowledge, which I'm sure will benefit anyone who reads it.

 Adept.