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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."
That utility has obtained patches that Windows Update indicated were already installed but wasn't. This utility has saved a lot of headaches. Really sorry to see it go like that.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
So are they going to shut down WindizUpdate next as it is a lot more useful that Windowsupdate has ever been. Then again maybe the patches are downloaded from Microsoft's servers but I'm not sure.
Autopatcher was really just a front end to all the official MS one-off hotfix exes. If those files are still available, why not adapt the frontend to grab those files from MS instead? Hell, the least MS could do is take on the tech and offer it to their customers with a free WGA check thrown in. Because it was so much easier even for home users with say two machines to update at home, plus mum & dad's, and that one they built for their pal.
Torrents for August release plz?
There is no reasonable alternative to the AutoPatcher from Microsoft, and Microsoft is threatened by revelation of hundred patches for a clean/new install of XP (wSP2).
Apple and Linux, he we come!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
There's better ways to do the job anyways (like slipstreaming updates in the install CD, since autopatcher was mainly used on new installs). Loads of similar tools (like WindizUpdate and many others) and tools like MS' WSUS (free too) to do the job anyways. I won't particularly miss it either, it was quite buggy -- you'd expect it to finish doing its job unattended, but you'd usually come back to yet another error message. Not that it was hard to put all the patches in folder along with a batch file or script that would apply them all either.
I wouldn't exactly say good riddance, but I'm not exactly sad to see it go either...
I don't think that in this case they are being unreasonable. I do think that it is a bit odd that they waited this long to assert their rights, but they are behaving.
I don't think that it has been a secret that cracked versions of windows have the potential to contain malware embedded at the deepest levels, to suggest that patches couldn't also be infected is a bit on the dishonest side.
As to whether this is really why, I have no idea. But I personally wouldn't feel comfortable downloading a copy over the net, even without any sort of threat of lawsuit.
What I would like MS to do is make it easy for people to download their patches, and hang onto them. Especially since windows doesn't run well for extended periods without being reinstalled.
Microsoft is so large and its userbase so enormous that no amount of bad press can affect them. Anything short of eating live babies would not impact them in the slightest.
Shutting down Autopatcher is nothing to them and will not affect their business in even a negligible fashion.
I would like to think otherwise but I can't. They are unstoppable.
It's about security: if you're not downloading the patches direct from Microsoft, there's more of a chance of them being compromised. Sure, it may not have happened yet but that's not to say it won't happen in the future.
Now what would be useful, is for Microsoft themselves to make it very easy for you to download and burn an 'windows update' DVD that'll take each version of XP up to date. Downloadable direct from Microsoft.
Alternatively, they could offer hashes for the downloads on Microsoft's servers, which Autopatcher can be pointed at in order to verify the downloads.
Had they done that, then they'd avoid all the negative PR!
Yeah, except that neither of those things does what autopatcher does. I don't want to have to reinstall the whole OS just to keep patches up to date, and I don't want to have to lay ethernet cable several hundred miles to my relatives' homes in order to patch them quickly from a server I control.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
offline update is terrific; its basically a script that wgets the patches directly from Microsoft,
The geinous of M$ can not be understated. Rather than let people share the burden of distributing their "patches" (efficiently)they will make everyone go to them. We have just seen how well they do at an easier task.
It won't be long before they only allow "authenticated" clients to download.
The contrast between this and the free software world could not be greater. Every gnu/linux distro has been easy to keep up today for the last ten years and there are verified mirrors everywhere. When you download a package from a mirror, you can md5 sum check it against the original source and most package managers do this automatically. M$ on the other hand, won't even let you distribute what they consider "free". Be wary when someone from M$ advocates BSD, love of your freedom is not the reason for their advice.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Just wait. I can almost guarantee that they've done this now to clear the way for something new of theirs. Something which will allow you to download updates for use and installation on multiple PC's at a later day. Yep, yet another MS 'innovation'.
Hmm Australians should pickup Autopatcher. WindizUpdate cannot be stopped unless Windows Update Supports other browers. Breach of Australia's fair trade laws.
What does this mean for the other vendors, namely the larger ones? Companies like PatchLink, Shavlik, BigFix? Do they all pay licensing fees to Microsoft to redistribute their content? ...or does Microsoft leave them alone because they have large customers with deep pockets?
Wow. This sucks. Glad I'm moving into nix/bsd admin and security, career wise. I'm currently a field service technician/computer consultant... our company provides it support for small to medium businesses... and even a few large ones that don't want an in house IT dept...
We use Autopatcher ALL the time for in house clean up work... ie... who wants 6+ boxes trying to download patches and clog up your bandwidth?
Slipstream? Don't make me laugh. Who doesn't already have an SP2 XP disc? If you're setting up a new box... activate, drop autopatcher on it, and you're done. WSUS? Why waste time adding another person's box to our domain, update, and then remove?
MS's own update ISO's? You really think I want to stick like 9 different discs... in several machines? And still not get like 1/2 the updates out there?
And of course... it has saved our bacon times when our net access was down(usually a backhoe hitting the fiber), or when Windows update simply wouldn't work(dreaded Win 2000 windowsupdate issues, even on a clean install).
Honestly, I don't think we can go back to downloading the same damn crap 5 at a time again. Just ridiculous.