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The Great OS Upodate

On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:51:08 GMT, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:

Can you address this bit you wrote?

If you allow windows update to freely do its thing, you WILL have issues
eventually. It's not a matter of "if". It's "when".

Do you really believe this, or was it hyperbole?

--Vic

I've seen it. Not on all computers, but on some. How about you?

No, but my experience is limited to corporate PC's, and home PC's not
used for business.

Even before WGA, the auto update process was seriously flawed. Do you
remember the update that completely changed the way OE allowed access to
attachments. Of course, this was not made clear to users until they hit a
brick wall when trying to access attachments. When this happened at my home
office, I was enjoying myself in Puerto Rico, out of cell phone range. Our
local computer consultant was home sick with the flu. Our "rainmaker", a guy
whose enormous sales depend on attachments, was dead in the water for a day.

I can now see your concern, and it's a valid one. I don't use OE at
home, preferring Agent, and at work the "image" team always kept OE
either flawless, or quickly fixed. A small business using MS doesn't
have that infrastructure. Shame on MS.

The MS newsgroups are periodically loaded with identical questions from
users whose machines have been somehow sabotaged by a "helpful" update. Even
the MS MVPs who answer users' question often recommend turning off auto
updates, opting instead for users to just be notified of an available
update, and waiting to see the effects they have on hapless people who
didn't follow their advice.

An individual user would be well advised to get updates manually, and
ghost an image beforehand, so he could restore if the update caused
issues. Personally, after the major security updates with XP, I never
went back, since the updates have no relevance for me on a single
workstation, and only further bloat the OS.
"If it ain't broke don't fix it."

You also said this:
Harry, I expected this. It's pathetic, really. The article is about a
piece of the windows update software which is essentially spyware.

Beyond looking at hardware configs for validation purposes - which IMO
is questionable for various reasons unrelated to spying - do you think
MS is really "spying" in the sense of gathering information about you
that they aren't entitled to?

--Vic

The Great OS Upodate

wrote in message
...
On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:28:28 -0600, Vic Smith
wrote:

Do you feel that WGA will report a "false positive" when attempting to
validate your OS, deactivate or cripple you OS, thus requiring you to
call MS to resolve it?

I had that problem with my father in law's PC running XP pro. It
turned his machine into a doorstop.
We called Microshaft and Bob from Bombay was ready to tell us how to
fix it when he figured out this was a Dell. Then suddenly it was $70
for the answer or call Dell. Dell's tech support Biff from Bombay
didn't know that trick so his fix was to reload the system from
scratch. XP's charming habit of putting "documents" in the windoze
directory means they are gone too. Fortunately I moved a lot of these
targets to the D drive for him.

I've done almost 30 XP and Office installations, and I have never seen docs
placed in the c:\windows directory. Which software placed its documents
there on the machine you're talking(s) about?

The Great OS Upodate

PhantMan wrote:
If yours works, I might give XP Home a shot on my spare
desktop.

On Thu, 29 Nov 07, HK wrote:
XP Pro runs on 384KB. I haven't installed any software yet, but the OS
certainly runs properly.

Music to my ears.
I'm now on the hunt for some cheap XP.

Rick

The Great OS Upodate

On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:18:46 GMT, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:

wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:28:28 -0600, Vic Smith
wrote:

Do you feel that WGA will report a "false positive" when attempting to
validate your OS, deactivate or cripple you OS, thus requiring you to
call MS to resolve it?

I had that problem with my father in law's PC running XP pro. It
turned his machine into a doorstop.
We called Microshaft and Bob from Bombay was ready to tell us how to
fix it when he figured out this was a Dell. Then suddenly it was $70
for the answer or call Dell. Dell's tech support Biff from Bombay
didn't know that trick so his fix was to reload the system from
scratch. XP's charming habit of putting "documents" in the windoze
directory means they are gone too. Fortunately I moved a lot of these
targets to the D drive for him.

I've done almost 30 XP and Office installations, and I have never seen docs
placed in the c:\windows directory. Which software placed its documents
there on the machine you're talking(s) about?

It's the docs and setting dir. I recall trying to change it as
default, but it can't be done. Don't know if it gets overlaid on a
reinstall. I don't do reinstalls (-:
But the location of docs is a consideration when devising a backup
scheme which considers a crash of the C: drive.

--Vic

The Great OS Upodate

"Vic Smith" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:51:08 GMT, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:

Can you address this bit you wrote?

If you allow windows update to freely do its thing, you WILL have
issues
eventually. It's not a matter of "if". It's "when".

Do you really believe this, or was it hyperbole?

--Vic

I've seen it. Not on all computers, but on some. How about you?

No, but my experience is limited to corporate PC's, and home PC's not
used for business.

Well, in corporations where the IT people are a step ahead of MS, these
things may not be as much of a problem.

Even before WGA, the auto update process was seriously flawed. Do you
remember the update that completely changed the way OE allowed access to
attachments. Of course, this was not made clear to users until they hit a
brick wall when trying to access attachments. When this happened at my
home
office, I was enjoying myself in Puerto Rico, out of cell phone range. Our
local computer consultant was home sick with the flu. Our "rainmaker", a
guy
whose enormous sales depend on attachments, was dead in the water for a
day.

I can now see your concern, and it's a valid one. I don't use OE at
home, preferring Agent, and at work the "image" team always kept OE
either flawless, or quickly fixed. A small business using MS doesn't
have that infrastructure. Shame on MS.

The MS newsgroups are periodically loaded with identical questions from
users whose machines have been somehow sabotaged by a "helpful" update.
Even
the MS MVPs who answer users' question often recommend turning off auto
updates, opting instead for users to just be notified of an available
update, and waiting to see the effects they have on hapless people who
didn't follow their advice.

An individual user would be well advised to get updates manually, and
ghost an image beforehand, so he could restore if the update caused
issues. Personally, after the major security updates with XP, I never
went back, since the updates have no relevance for me on a single
workstation, and only further bloat the OS.
"If it ain't broke don't fix it."

I'm just guessing, but I think that for every 1000 users, you might find 50
who know what ghosting in image means, and maybe 2 who'll actually do it.

You also said this:
Harry, I expected this. It's pathetic, really. The article is about a
piece of the windows update software which is essentially spyware.

Beyond looking at hardware configs for validation purposes - which IMO
is questionable for various reasons unrelated to spying - do you think
MS is really "spying" in the sense of gathering information about you
that they aren't entitled to?

--Vic

Not information about me, and I have no problem with software which needs to
know things about my computer in order to provide the correct patches.
However, I *do* have issues when one day the software doesn't do this, and
the next day it does, even when it's been explicitly told not to.
Fortunately, ZoneAlarm alerts me to any unauthorized outbound conversations,
but this isn't the case for many users, especially if they are using XP's
firewall, which does not monitor outbound nonsense.

The Great OS Upodate

"Vic Smith" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:18:46 GMT, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:

wrote in message
. ..
On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:28:28 -0600, Vic Smith
wrote:

Do you feel that WGA will report a "false positive" when attempting to
validate your OS, deactivate or cripple you OS, thus requiring you to
call MS to resolve it?

I had that problem with my father in law's PC running XP pro. It
turned his machine into a doorstop.
We called Microshaft and Bob from Bombay was ready to tell us how to
fix it when he figured out this was a Dell. Then suddenly it was $70
for the answer or call Dell. Dell's tech support Biff from Bombay
didn't know that trick so his fix was to reload the system from
scratch. XP's charming habit of putting "documents" in the windoze
directory means they are gone too. Fortunately I moved a lot of these
targets to the D drive for him.

I've done almost 30 XP and Office installations, and I have never seen
docs
placed in the c:\windows directory. Which software placed its documents
there on the machine you're talking(s) about?

It's the docs and setting dir. I recall trying to change it as
default, but it can't be done. Don't know if it gets overlaid on a
reinstall. I don't do reinstalls (-:
But the location of docs is a consideration when devising a backup
scheme which considers a crash of the C: drive.

--Vic

Without exception on the machines I've been involved with, the default
document dir is always My Documents, which is not a subdir of c:\windows.
This can be changed, but it's not something most users stumble across.
Matter of fact, I thought it required the optional Powertoys utilities in
order to do this.

I'm not sure what he's talking about. Let's wait and see.