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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."
However to say that by default it was indexing the entire C: drive is erroneous. The default behavior is to index user files in "doc and settings" and then your outlook files after you open that program.
Windows Update, you're the whore
Who makes my computing such a chore
I can't take this shit anymore
Woo woo be doo
Windows Update, you make me sore,
When I disable you, you ignore!
Windows Update, you're the bane of my existence, it's true!
Doo doo doo doo, doo doo
Every day when I
Make my way to the workstation
I find a little fella who's
downloaded some new MS aberration
Chunk-a-lunk-a-bluescreen!
Windows Update, you're a cunt
And I'm not sure I could be more blunt
Windows Update, I'm awfully cross at you.
Every day when I
Make my way to the workstation
I find a little fella who's
downloaded some new MS aberration
Windows Update, you're a cunt
And I'm not sure I could be more blunt
Windows Update, I'm awfully sick of -
Windows Update, I'd like stick a brick in -
Windows Update, I'm gonna download Ubuntu!
Doo doo, be doo
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I think you'll find that the Desktop Search is completely inseparable from the desktop and that the latter would be rendered completely useless if it is uninstalled. Just like IE is.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
Fabulous - my first Troll mod :) I actually felt I was making a serious point, although I guess I put it rather briefly.
People don't have a realistic alternative to Windows yet. It's not just a technology issue either. Microsoft only improve products when they face competition, and ensuring they don't have to do that is one of their principal business strategies.
Since Microsoft is (a) in the game of making money, (b) has a monopoly position in the market place and (c) continues to shut out competitors, then I contend that Microsoft don't care whether they piss off their users or not, and never really did care, except in those areas in which they are yet to dominate.
Pleasing users is not Microsoft's game. That's what their competitors have to do.
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.
There is a fix for the "Windows Update" problem. If universally applied, it will also fix the Storm Worm.
You know what it is.
This applies to WSUS only, not the consumer Windows Update as everyone has mistaken it for. WSUS is the corporate, large-network version of managing and deploying product patches & upgrades to Windows machines (even if it's useful networks of any size really).
What I find bizarre is that this system, not Windows Update (which I stress again, is different) has been subjected to a patch that seems to auto-approve itself!
Under normal circumstances, each patch has to be approved (if set this way) by a network-admin before it will trickle out to workstations. This is the first time it would appear an update has approved itself.
throw new NoSignatureException();
The problem here is in fact that the search has come as an update for Windows, rather than a separate product. Looks like the people that are affected are auto-approving updates as they come, which more or less half the reason you'd use WSUS in the first place - to test patch deployments before releasing onto the network at large.
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2315860&SiteID=1
throw new NoSignatureException();
Gah, it will index my porn! I don't want it to do that, it will make it easier for my wife to find it. Please god, don't let it index my porn.
Note: This post was only partially tongue in cheek. I don't really care if my wife finds my porn.
Actually, TFA is not misleading at all.
I am one of the Systems Admin for a company with 2000+ users. We use WSUS for updating our clients, and our WSUS settings are set to not install any updates of any kind what so ever unless we explicitly approved of them.
Yesterday ALL of our users suddenly got the Windows Desktop Search app. We double checked our WSUS settings, confirmed that updates only install with approval, and also explicitly "Declined" the Windows Desktop Search. It still continued to roll out, even though we said we didn't want it!
We use Lotus Notes for our corperate e-mail, and so Outlook is not installed on any computers, and so of course since Windows Desktop Search indexes your Outlook e-mail, and since we didn't have it, everytime a user logs on now, they get two error messages about that it can't find Outlook and can't index your e-mail. Ridiculus!!!!!
Called Microsoft for support (we have an enterprise license) and said they would "look into it" and "get back to us". No matter that our users are calling like crazy and wondering what is going on...
I *hate* Microsoft now.
Rename all your Porn to "How to build a deck." "How to fix an engine."
That will guarantee she doesn't look at it.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
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.
"How to lay pipe."
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
It was released as an revision update. WSUS automatically approves those by default, even if you've got every other type of update set to manual approval. Its a separate tab (Advanced) in the Automatic Approvals dialog, so its basically a hidden setting unless you're looking for it.
"An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory."
-Fredrich Engel