Why I Don’t Use Windows Automatic Updates
I have chosen over the years to not let Windows do Automatic Updates on its own. The reasons are simple. Typically, I am working in a corporate environment with anywhere up to 100 computers. Some of these reasons do not apply with your home PC or a smaller environment.
- Some updates, like service packs, are huge. I will update those once either manually or preferably through Windows Software Update Services - a server application that controls updates for a network. If you let automatic updates handle it on an individual PC basis, your internet bandwidth will suffer as each of these workstations downloads the same huge files. I download once to a shared location and install from there.
- Microsoft, especially of late, has a habit of releasing updates that break things. I don’t want a call at 8am one Wednesday (after a Microsoft Patch Tuesday) from each of my clients telling me all of their workstations are broken in some way or another. I let other experts test the updates and when they say it’s all clear, then I release the update from WSUS on the controlling server. Recently a SQL Server update crashed the main line of business software for one of my clients - not good. And that was after I waited. The other day I had to fix a home PC where an automatic update screwed the machine up royally because Trend Micro Security Suite was installed. Not Trend’s fault. Just 2 weeks ago a Microsoft update cause people with ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite to be locked out of the internet. Hard to lookup or download a fix that way, isn’t it?
- I don’t trust Microsoft, nor hardly any other vendor for that matter. I don’t want them phoning home for anything without my knowledge and permission. I don’t want them hogging my CPU power without me knowing and approving it and I bought broadband so I could access the internet, not them.
- And I certainly don’t want mass updates going out to my clients any time I am not going to be around to fix a problem should it arise. Automatic updates from anyone, anytime just make it hard to answer the question “what changed”. That’s the first question I ask someone when they tell me their PC stopped working properly.
- Add up the companies that want to hog CPU and bandwidth from you, then tell me you have no idea why your PC seems so slow. Microsoft (windows updates, office updates, installer updates), Sun (Java), Apple (Quicktime, iTunes), HP (whatever printer you have that will never have any updates available for it anyway but they want to check for some reason regardless), RealPlayer - who have I forgotten? You don’t really wonder where all of your performance, system resources and bandwidth have gone, do you?
I still like scheduled visits to secunia.com which checks a whole bunch of things in one shot, with links to any needed updates. It’s free (they will offer you another service, but you don’t have to do that); and works like a charm.
