June 8th, 2006

Images: Microsoft's shoddy Windows Genuine Advantage Installation Process

Posted by Andy Smith

Categories: General

This screen gallery shows the process that some Windows users will see in the course of updating their computers. [See my blog entry MS anti-piracy tools phone home regarding disclosure and consent when it comes to the types of software that Microsoft pushes to Windows users through its Windows Update technology.] The following screen demonstrate the extent to which users are notified of the “update’s” expected behavior (sufficient disclosure was identified as recent a problem in a News.com report by Joris Evers) as well as the extent to which users have an opportunity to consent to particular updates, or deny it. The screen image below shows the four basic modes of Windows Update that end users can select from when accessing the Windows Update configurator from Windows’ Control Panel. In the automatic mode, updates are automatically downloaded to end-users’ computers and then automatically installed. The process happens transparently and the opportunity to consent to or refuse specific updates only comes up if the end-user must accept an End User License Agreement (EULA) from Microsoft. By not accepting the EULA, you’re essentially refusing the update. The question is whether or not the EULA is effective in accurately communicating the intent and behavior of the software, as well as the ramifications of not accepting it. More on EULA’s later.

The second option, and the one that this screen gallery explores in a little more depth, is where updates are automatically downloaded to your Windows computer, but not installed. As indicated in the remaining screen images, there are essentially two paths associated with this mode of Windows Update. The Express path basically manually kicks-off the installation part of the Automatic (non-verbose) mode; the Custom path is more robust in terms of consent, but is lacking in some detail.

The third option, also explored in these screen images, allows for notification about updates, but does nothing else. Manual intervention is required to both download updates as well as install them. As you will see in the screen images that follow, this involves a labryinth of confusing Windows and dialog boxes that don’t do a very good job of giving end users the sort of decision support information they need to approve of or refuse an update.

The fourth mode is 100 percent manual. It’s like the third option in that you have to go out and manually download and update your computer. But with Windows Update essentially turned off, you won’t receive any notifications that updates are waiting to be downloaded.

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Credit: David Berlind

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