September 14th, 2007

Microsoft dodging the real stealth update issues

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 7:34 am

Categories: Microsoft, Stealth Update

Tags: Microsoft Windows Update, Update, Customer, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Corp., Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Breaking news - Latest from Microsoft

I’ve taken some time to properly digest Microsoft’s response to the stealth update issue that I’ve been discussing here for the last few days and I’ve come to the conclusion that Microsoft is dodging the real issues about the stealth updates.

Let’s begin by dissecting the official response I received from a Microsoft spokesperson yesterday.

The files that are being updated are part of the Windows Update client itself. Windows Update automatically updates itself from time to time to ensure that it is running the most current technology, so that it can check for updates and notify customers that new updates are available.

I knew that already.

This is normal behavior, and it has worked this way since the service debuted several years ago.

I’ll get back to this point later …

This is not to suggest that we were as transparent as we could have been; to the contrary, we could have been clearer on how Windows Update behaves when it updates itself. [emphasis added]

Right now Microsoft seem to be trying to defend a way of thinking that’s indefensibleThis point leaves me somewhat confused. I can’t figure out from this whether the Windows Update patch that was released on August 24th could have acted as a normal update (in other words, bought up a notification as usual only released out of step and not on Patch Tuesday) or whether this is referring to the fact that Microsoft could have somehow made the process more transparent but didn’t. I need to clarify this. One possibility here is that Windows update was somehow broken and Microsoft wanted to push a patch before the regular Patch Tuesday so that updates weren’t interrupted. However, coming back to the real world, I have no evidence to suggest that the Windows Update mechanism was broken before this stealth update was applied.

We’ve received helpful and important feedback on this point, and we are now looking at the best way to clarify WU’s behavior to customers so that they can more clearly understand how WU works.

Good.

That said, we continue to be confident that the choice to use Automatic Updating continues to be the best decision for many of our customers. Windows Update remains a popular service with our customers because it helps them stay safe and have confidence that they are running the latest software from us.

Here comes the PR spin. Basically, what I’m reading here is that we should all have Windows set to automatically retrieve and install updates automatically and that those of us that don’t are deviants from the norm. I’m given a choice to “Download updates but let me choose whether to install them” or “Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them” (the wording used within Windows Vista) but by choosing one of these options I made the wrong choice.

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