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Microsoft Forces Shutdown of Autopatcher

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the hooray-for-lawyers dept.

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."

12 of 290 comments (clear)

  1. One down, X to go. by c0l0 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Whilst skimming over the About-Section of the page, this tool's description reminded me of heise's "offline update" ( http://www.heise-security.co.uk/articles/80682 ). It's an alternative tool, allowing the download of selected Microsoft Windows update packs for later, offline (re-)use. Nice to have - if you're still on Windows, that is. Wonder if/when it's gonna be shot down as well.

    --
    :%s/Open Source/Free Software/g

    YTARY!
  2. Morons. by adam.dorsey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    You are still innocent until proven guilty. What's changed is what they do to innocent people. - notnAP, #26891325
    1. Re:Morons. by tftp · · Score: 5, Insightful
      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.]

  3. Are they making the arguement that..... by 8127972 · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... this is some sort of DMCA violation? That's bizarre because Microsoft has known about them for some time and according to their site, they didn't care:

    "Q: Is AutoPatcher legal?
    A: Yes, Antonis Kaladis (our project manager) once spoke to a Microsoft employee and apparently they know about us but don't care what we do! The AutoPatcher project has been going strong since 2003 and never had a sniff of trouble from Microsoft."

    From http://www.autopatcher.com/faq/

    --
    This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
  4. Torrent links here for August ... by trolltalk.com · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/mystats.php

    http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatch er_DirectX_Aug07_x86_ENU_Addon.exe.torrent
    http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatch er_Extras_Jul07_x86_ENU_Addon.exe.torrent\
    http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatch er_Office02_Aug07_ENU_Core.exe.torrent
    http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatch er_Office03_Aug07_ENU_Core.exe.torrent
    http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatch er_Office07_Aug07_ENU_Core.exe.torrent
    http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatch er_OfficePack_Aug07_ENU_Addon.exe.torrent
    http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatch er_Win2K3_Aug07_x86_ENU_Core.exe.torrent
    http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatch er_Win2K_Aug07_ENU_Core.exe.torrent
    http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatch er_WinVista_Jul07_Core.exe.torrent
    http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatch er_WinX64_Jul07_x64_ENU_Core.exe.torrent
    http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatch er_WinXP_Aug07_x86_ENU_Core.exe.torrent
    http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatch er_WinXP_MCE2005_May07_x86_ENU_Addon.exe.torrent
    http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatch er_WinXP_WMP10_May07_x86_ENU_Addon.exe.torrent

    Found via google cache :-)

    --
    Kevin Smith on Prince
  5. I noted this on Neowin... by 8127972 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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.

    --
    This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
  6. Should have bought and funded it instead by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
    1. Re:Should have bought and funded it instead by binarybum · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "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.

      --
      ôó
  7. What about the DVD ISO on MS's download page? by Arctech · · Score: 5, Informative

    I haven't heard of this before, (just found it, actually), but would this be a reasonable facsimile?
    http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=913086&SD=tech

  8. Re:Understatement of the Month. by tftp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  9. Terrific. How long before they break even that? by Erris · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  10. For many, this makes Windows XP more expensive. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.