Microsoft Forces Shutdown of Autopatcher

kaufmanmoore writes "Posts on Neowin and Autopatcher's site announce Microsoft has forced the closure of the Autopatcher download section. Details are scarce as to the exact reason for the take down after over 4 years of availability, but an official from Microsoft legal says that it has nothing to do with Windows Genuine Advantage. Goodbye to another useful tool that helped sysadmins apply Microsoft's numerous patches."

Comments

Morons.

[adam.dorsey]

Do they even understand the concept of bad publicity any more, or did they just stop caring?

Fuckers hit close to home, this time; Autopatcher was great for keeping relatives on dialup up-to-date.

Re:Morons.

[tftp]

They just stopped caring. And why not indeed - what is there to be afraid in squashing a little web site? The society is already in deep apathy (if not slumber,) and critical thought is about to send you to jail. Bloggers on /. will rage and fume for a few days, but nobody will notice that anyhow, and all that rage will dissipate in a week, but the good business remains.

MS is cynical and ruthless because it can and because it is profitable; and so it will stay. If you don't like that don't run Windows, it is that simple. With modern Linux distros it's not such a great loss. And if you don't want to fiddle with X settings, get a mac - Apple will charge you for that, but you get a sane system in return, not a buggy treadmill. [full disclosure: I do not own a modern Mac; all I have is an ancient PowerBook with 8.5.x MacOS, and I rarely even power it on, I keep it as a piece of history.]

I noted this on Neowin...

[8127972]

"I asked the representative if Windows Genuine Advantage had anything to do with it and he categorically told me this was not the case, he added that Windows Update for pre-Vista versions of Windows can now be accessed using Firefox and that the concern at Microsoft had more to do with the possible malicious code that could be redistributed with certified Microsoft updates."

Sure. Whatever. We all know that there's never been a case of malicious code distributed with Autopatcher. So I'm calling it now. Watch M$ come up with their own tool that does the same thing as Autopatcher and watch them find a way to turn it into a revenue stream.

But you don't understand what it was good for

[spun]

Patches can be slipstreamed anyway, and for the mother of all 'off-line patching systems' there's Windows Server Update Services. Slipstreaming? WSUS? Those are useful in entirely different situations. Autopatcher is for when you are visiting your aunt Tilly and don't want to spend four hours downloading all the latest patches for her over her dialup. Please explain how either of your proposed solutions would be even remotely useful in the very common situation of patching a relative's computer.

Shenanigans

[krgallagher]

"Microsoft legal says that it has nothing to do with Windows Genuine Advantage. "

I call Shenanigans!

Should have bought and funded it instead

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Instead of shutting it down, Microsoft should have bought Autopatcher and funded it.

This service added a lot of value to MS customers. Tearing it down because they were better than their equivalent is destructive.

Doing things that make your products harder to use is bad business sense. It really shows how badly out of touch MS is with the industry.

Re:Should have bought and funded it instead

[binarybum]

"Doing things that make your products harder to use is bad business sense. It really shows how badly out of touch MS is with the industry."

Nah, it shows what a powerful monopoly they have developed. They can make using their products downright miserable (they practically have already) and people will continue to curse that evil ol' bill gates as they IM each-other on MS messenger in MS vista on their laptops with the "built for windows!" sticker still attached. Plenty of other companies would like to implement the kind of security lockdowns MS has, and are capable of doing so. However, market pressures force them to realize that excessive measures create a barrier to use and sway customers towards friendlier products. Microsoft is not out of touch with the industry. Microsoft is the industry.

Re:Understatement of the Month.

[tftp]

Well, you do lose PC games, since rare a game works under WINE. But I personally fixed this issue by just getting a console, and I am not sorry that I did - the thing just works, and I don't need to throw kilobucks at video cards. And in any case, games are first released for consoles, and only much later - maybe - rereleased for a PC.

What's the deal with Neowin?

[belmolis]

Microsoft is within its rights, though obnoxious, with regard to Autopatcher, but since when is it their business what Neowin says about Autopatcher? Where does MS get off telling Neowin to take down their forums? Is MS just being a bully or is there some relationship between MS and Neowin that I don't know about?

For many, this makes Windows XP more expensive.

[Futurepower(R)]

The purpose of Autopatcher was to reduce the VERY high maintenance costs of Windows XP. Windows often becomes corrupted and must be reloaded to clear away system files that have been infected with viruses and other malware.

Notice that Microsoft has not released a Service Pack 3 for Windows XP, even though it has been years since SP2 was released. The purpose of the delay is apparently to make Windows XP more expensive, in the hope that people will begin to adopt Windows Vista.

The Windows XP updates of just last Patch Tuesday were more than 20 Megabytes.

Windows Vista is not an option for many, since because of the hassles with Windows XP, many companies have a rule never to use a Windows version before the 2nd service pack is released, and the bugs in Windows Vista are reinforcing that rule.

Also, Windows Vista requires far more resources. Each new Windows version requires more resources, apparently to try to manipulate customers to buy new computers. That serves Microsoft's biggest customers, the computer builders.