Microsoft makes good with a 23-fix Patch Tuesday It'll be all hands to the pumps in IT departments around the globe as Microsoft has issued this month's round of patches. There are 23 flaws to be fixed. The seven patches include three critical issues, affecting Microsoft Windows, Office, Silverlight, and the .NET Framework. One patch, MS12-034, sorts ten flaws, some of which …
I bought my wife an ASUS bouncy-bouncy (because it has now survived 19 counter-to-floor drops without damage) Eee PC which she uses for browsing for recipes and e-mail in the kitchen. Only a couple of programs loaded - Firefox and Irfan.
Then along comes Wednesday (we are one day ahead of Redmond), up pops the Update flag and once again the StartUp Repair kicks in.
Such fun. Normal service might be restored by Friday. It's enough to drive you to Linux.
I already have been driven to Linux but fired up my virtual XP a few days ago. 21 updates took an hour and a half to install. Now I have 23 more to look forward to :(
FWIW I have had the misfortune to have been using Win7 on work machines, it sucks!
We're all so happy for you.
Truely.
Now, unless you have nothing better to do than bleat on about about how much you detest windows, please go and do something more constructive.
Oh, FWIW i have been running windows 7 since its inception and its great!!!!!!
If you have a crappy Windows 7 install then you or your IT dept are not very good.
Might want to revisit that support contract come renewal time. You know the time they are really eager to help at all costs but then once the ink is dry on the new contract they basically say "FU!" till its renewal time again.
Do you think that Linux doesn't have updates? The question should really be: Do you want updates to trickle in through the month, or in a monthly batch? As it looks like this machine's required functionallity would be easily covered by Linux or Windows.
It sure does but for ALL packages (including "3d parties" even flashplayer!!!) and more promptly.
The reboot is only required with a patch for the running kernel. Say, when LO or a web browser get updated, restart the app not the whole system.
And BTW, have not remembered an arbitrary remote code execution vuln. for a long time (especially, within an office or a web browser).
Bought my daughter an ASUS Eee pc for xmas year before last, she loves it and both hardware and software are pretty robust. Nevertheless the ASUS bloatware that came with it is shit and throws exceptions approximately every half hour. She just ok's them and carries on.
The point I'm making is that these machines have crappy OEM builds of windows with badly written services that don't do what they're supposed to and blow up all the time. That's not really Microsoft's fault, I'm sure ASUS could also mash up an install of UNIX if they tried hard enough...
I make a living cleaning all that crap off PCs. When the customers get them back they ask how they got a CPU and ram upgrade for free, its so much smoother and faster.
As I've mentioned before if you install Vista on a old PC as a clean bloatware free install and its really smooth, works great.
It's amazing that MS knows what it's doing but HP/Dell/Acer/Asus/Toshiba/Fujitsu haven't got a bloody clue and just wreck it all. So many people have never experienced the joy of a clean Windows install.
It's like a car manufacturer making a car and then welding the handbrake up on purpose.
I did a clean install of Vista on a home built system. It was total crap and still would be if it were still there, so stop with the bullshit. Vista didn't have near the driver support it should have, and only slightly better software support. Windows 7 is much improved and is stable.
While I concur most of the vendors install crapware that slogs down the computer, that doesn't necessarily mean the underlying OS is decent. And frankly, if you're talking about the 64-bit versions of the OS, getting apps that run properly in a secured environment is still nigh unto impossible. Whether it is networked printer drivers, high end programs you would expect to be optimized for a 64-bit OS (Yeah Autodesk and Adobe I'm looking at you), or games on the home system, the programmers just don't seem to have any idea who to write and support them.
you want the flaws left unfixed?
It comes at you free over the internet, you get to choose if it's downloaded automatically and installed or just downloaded,to be installed at your convenience, or downloaded when you want. How is this bad?
And as someone said, Linux doesn't have updates. You ever run Linux? It has updates. And that's great too.
Updates mean flaws in the system are corrected.
I don't know what you guys want, back in the good old days, you got a letter saying that a floppy of fixes was available and you sent off a blank disk and return postage and a handling fee and waited and then installed the upgrades. Course we weren't online in the same way then.
That's what drives me mad about Windows, way too many updates. The disk doesn't stop going for about 10 minutes after log on. Plus then you have to let your machine install updates on shutdown too.
If you don't need it on the Internet (niche use purpose these days, but still a possibility) then you're probably best to update it to the latest service pack then disable network connectivity and update systems.
No, I've gotten the notice more than once on my home system a couple times in the last 6 months. Given that I normally log on to the system once a day, if they all install at once that shouldn't be the case. Still, if you are hitting the Shutdown button on your way out the door, it shouldn't be an issue, even if it is downloading 23 patches from that huge update they did about 2 years back.
@chandleo - I've never understood the people who stare frustrated at their machine waiting for it to power down. If my laptop is ever pausing at the "installing x of y updates" I'm usually well out the door, laptop either shoved in a drawer or updating merrily in my bag. It'll power off when complete, there's really no need to keep it company or even connected to a network.
Hopefully a handy hint to get you towards the pub sooner. Or like me, just never shut it down (standby or hibernate save a lot of time the next morning!)
I have at least a few users who used to complain to me about how their XP machines were 'always bothering them' about wanting to restart after installing updates, so I decided to watch closer to see what was up... Turns out they never did actually let them restart, so of course they were being nagged. Once I explained to them that if they actually let the machine restart (or shutdown at the end of the day) then it wouldn't constantly bother them, the complaints dried up.
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