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Microsoft Forces Desktop Search On Windows Update
An anonymous reader writes "The Register is reporting that the blogosphere is alight with accusations of Microsoft forcing Windows Desktop Search on networks via the 'automatic install' feature of Windows Update — even if they had configured their systems not to use the program. Once installed, the search program began diligently indexing C drives and entire networks slowed to a crawl."
Conspiracy theory: MS is doing this to cause older or marginal boxes to become less responsive/snappy so as to further nudge the owners towards getting a new machine... and hence Vista.
Companies that can't afford to send a fleet of tech monkeys running around to all of the desktops (in other words, most of them).
I manage the WSUS at my company. No updates are EVER to be passed through without my direct approval, even new revisions of previously approved updates. We've had far too many updates go through and break things to allow any kind of auto approval. So, imagine my surprise when I sit down to a cup of coffee and my morning log review, and the first thing I see when I log in is the Windows Update icon telling me to install Windows Desktop Search - something I never approved.
It went straight through, completely ignoring all of our security policies in the process. I was a little irritated at the Windows Update self-update passing through but I let that one slide since it was a MUCH needed bugfix and MS got a suitable backlash from it (silly me, thinking it was a one-time thing). Now we have the same behavior again months later. This is not acceptable. Luckily I'm in a bit earlier than most people so I was able to recall it with a few ninja edits to our group policy, and a company wide email apologizing for allowing it to be published, and warning people to avoid installing it if it somehow still got through to their systems.
I made a few changes. Our WSUS servers now no longer have internet access and are not scheduled to download. I must manually turn on their internet access in our firewall and activate the pull interactively. That way I will see the updates as they arrive, and not have to put up with this stealth update bullshit in the future. I clearly cannot trust them to just sit there and acquire updates on their own any longer.
I'm now developing a security policy for our corporate security software that will forcibly kill any applications on a blacklist I am creating. I will be adding Google Desktop, Windows Desktop Search, Plaxo, AIM, and any other programs I find that have a habit of sending data back home to outside companies. I'll happily find people alternatives that don't phone home - it's not the apps that bother me, it's the potential for leakage of our corporate data to third parties. I don't particularly care if the feature can be turned off, since I'm not the one installing it. If a program has potential to phone home, it's banned.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.