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NTBUGTRAQ Bashes Windows Update

Posted by michael on from the would-you-like-your-computer-to-stop-working?-[y/n] dept.

BigBadBri writes "Russ Cooper, keeper of the NTBUGTRAQ list, has a few concerns (to put it mildly) with the trustworthiness of Microsoft's Windows Update."

5 of 509 comments (clear)

  1. I like Windows Update by Teckla · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'll voice an opinion that'll surely prove to be unpopular around these parts: I like Windows Update.

    Sure, like any given piece of software, you may run into glitches and bugs at some point. But, overall, Windows Update has provided me with an extremely easy and painless way to keep my systems updated.

    Even my Mom can use it, which says a lot. It's better than any alternatives I've seen which require too much geek knowledge to operate. (Admittedly I've never seen how MacOS X handles updates.)

    -Teckla

    1. Re:I like Windows Update by andrewmc · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Windows Update has provided me with an extremely easy and painless way to keep my systems updated.
      Maybe I'm missing something, but didn't the article say that it can leave your system not fully updated, while you only think it is?
  2. Maybe not... by Uruk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is it better? Here's a quote from the article:

    Let me put it this way. Since the inception of Windows Update millions of computers have been infected with Trojan's that are today allowing individuals to conduct en-masse DDoS attacks. Read that how you want, but its a fact. Here's another. Since the inception of Windows Update Microsoft has gone to producing patches almost every week. Few if any business' have found Microsoft trustworthy enough to permit automatic updates

    Many people will also tell you that a false positive is far worse than a false negative. For example, if Windows Update is misconfigured and tells you that you're up to date when you're really not, that's arguably worse than not being up to date and knowing that you're not up to date. (Because in the latter situation at least you can do something about it)

    Even if technically windows update is better than nothing, it's utterly pathetic that this is the best one of the richest and most powerful corporations on the planet can do for their customers.

    --
    -- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
    1. Re:Maybe not... by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful
      So wait, microsoft is releasing more updates, this is bad? So maybe some of their updates have bugs, at least we get the fixes rapidly. It's not like this doesn't happen to, say, linux - a fix breaks something else and another patch comes out three days later.

      So if that's a problem with Windows Update, perhaps that is why many companies still don't trust Open Source. The only difference here is that we don't see the source code. I don't read the source anyway, so I'm not losing anything :P

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Re:In case of slashdotting, by vadim_t · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Heh, same goes for you. Please explain how do you think he could give a solution to that. I mean, this isn't Open Source. He can't just download the tar.gz and make a patch for it. All he could do is perhaps call MS, *paying for the call*, and hope that somebody there fixes the problem.

    In Open Source, complaining like this might be frowned upon sometimes. After all, we understand that not every OSS developer works for IBM, and has time and resources to fix every bug.

    However, this is commercial software, and closed source to boot. Why should anybody solve Microsoft's problems? Isn't that why people pay for work being done for them in the first place? I think he's doing pretty much the best thing he can do, complaining in public. That's the one thing that seems to work pretty well to get the attention of large companies.