lets play the HIDDEN SECURITY UPDATE game

L

lastrites

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 22, 2003
Messages
131
I always run windows update. I recently found out there is also "office update" I need to go to separately for outlook, excel, etc.... (I figured since WU "scans" your machine it would see that you have office and instal updates for your office products...

Now I stumbled upon another microsoft site that has patches and updates here (scroll down a little): http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/current.asp

My question is, if I am already running all the critcal updates through windows update, do I also need to get updates from that technet site?

Because if that is the case, what is the point of even having Windows Update if there are all these other security patches that need to be downloaded? Up until now I didn't even know they existed.

I am guessing that everything on the technet site was already included in the Windows Update critical update, but there is so much stuff there (368 bulletins) I am not so sure anymore.

I don't want to waste my time downloading all of these patches if I already have them, ya know?
 
As i understand it. These updates are the same as what's available thru windows updates, the difference being 2 fold. 1st is the files are just files, which you'll need to execute yourself. The nice things is you can burn them to a cd and have them rather then do the windows update route everytime ( helps for modem users). 2ndAlso some of the patchs arent available now/yet/ever on the windows update side because they only occur under specific circumstances and arent needed by the general public.....
 
Office is NOT part of Windows, and not everyone that has windows installed has office. You do need to go to the office update site to update office, and I've found most people don't even know about this. Expecting office to update when you update windows is like expecting Photoshop to update when you update indesign.
 
Originally posted by NewBlackDak
Expecting office to update when you update windows is like expecting Photoshop to update when you update indesign.
Click to expand...

Except that Windows update does do automatic updates of DirectX , Visual Studio, and Windows Media Player, etc.

It would be trivial to include the neccessary logic inside WindowsUpdate to determine if the user has Office installed and then install the appropriate patches. Under this scenario, only users that have office installed would see the updates.

Seems like a no-brainer to me.
 
There is a link that says "Office Update" right at the top of the Windows Update site, its not hard to see.
 
Originally posted by svet-am
Except that Windows update does do automatic updates of DirectX , Visual Studio, and Windows Media Player, etc.

It would be trivial to include the neccessary logic inside WindowsUpdate to determine if the user has Office installed and then install the appropriate patches. Under this scenario, only users that have office installed would see the updates.

Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Click to expand...

Windows update doesn't update visual studio (or hasn't updated mine EVER).

The other pieces you listed are base windows components.
 
Originally posted by batkiwi
Windows update doesn't update visual studio (or hasn't updated mine EVER).

The other pieces you listed are base windows components.
Click to expand...
Exactly! Those are the standard installed Win Packages that come with the OS is the diffrence. Office is totally seperate and, there are alot of versions of it. I have Office97 and, I dont expect XP to up-date it. I dont use it that much but, it was given to me so, I use it.
 
First, obviously you guys don't use VS .NET (or VS 6 - I know that VS 97 doesn't update via Windows Update). I just did a Windows Re-install and did my VS updates that way.


Next, you guys totally missed my point. The logic is simple for Windows Update to detect the presence of office intelligently.

I'm not an office user, but it would make life a lot easier for them. Espescially in distributing those Outlook patches that seem to come weekly.
 
While I'm not saying that this is the reason for not having Office updates on WU, I know there's plenty of legal restrictions about distributing something as a "Windows component". While DirectX, WMP, the VB runtime and the .NET Framework are Windows components (to my knowlege); Office, VS and other stand alone apps not distributed with Windows are most definately not Windows components.

I wouldn't be supprised if we were barred from putting updates on WU for programs that didn't fall into this "Windows component" category. While I don't know if this is the reason (I don't work on anyting releated to WU), it wouldn't suprise me if it was.
 
That page is one of the several pages where you can download single updates for offline / network deployment.

...and even though you can run the same update/patch several times, it will only install the first time. (won't reinstall if it's already installed)
 
Originally posted by svet-am
First, obviously you guys don't use VS .NET (or VS 6 - I know that VS 97 doesn't update via Windows Update). I just did a Windows Re-install and did my VS updates that way.


Next, you guys totally missed my point. The logic is simple for Windows Update to detect the presence of office intelligently.

I'm not an office user, but it would make life a lot easier for them. Espescially in distributing those Outlook patches that seem to come weekly.
Click to expand...
I see your point as clear as day. I bang my head against the wall every time I have to visit 2 sites to update my MS software. The logic would indeed be easy to incorporate which is why I think there is another reason, proabably a leagal one which would probably escape all logic. At any rate I believe they use the same back end to determine what needs patching and how, so the reason it is setup like that is not a technical one.
 
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