Paul Maher's Blog

I read this post just as I was setting up a machine for my dad (Win2KPro, because that's what he is used to). Fortunately I already had copies of SP4 and IE6SP1 on CDR, but there's some stuff really annoying about downloading the patches:

- I run a Linux desktop myself (usually command-line only). This makes it impossible to get to Windows Update (or the Windows Update Catalog).

- Can't download DirectX because of some drivel called the "Genuine Advantage" or something.

- When I finally booted into a Windows XP installation I have on one of my spare systems, I found the Catalog to be barely useful. When I specified wanting updates for Win2KPro SP4 in English, no multilanguage stuff, there are things like ".NET Framework 1.0 SP3 Chinese Version" (doesn't sound very English), lots of updates that say they want to install only on SP1, SP2 or SP3. Windows Scripting Host version 5.0, 5.1 and 5.6. (Surely just downloading the latest would be sufficient?)

- One "critical update" for IE6SP1 claimed to be dependent IE6SP1 and another update. Still haven't found that other update. It certainly wasn't in the list.

In the end, it proved easiest to connect the machine to the network almost unpatched and let Windows Update do its thing on that new machine. Not much of a security risk since I have 3 properly configured firewalls in my home network alone, but a major annoyance anyway (especially since most of my network is wireless, but my parents have only wired so I needed to find an appropriate cable first).

All in all a very unsatisfying experience. It would be tremendously useful to simply have a way to download just the necessary patches and security updates in one go without any obsolete ones or too much unnecessary fluff. Even just a page with links to the appropriate files would make reinstallation a lot less painful.

It's just a suggestion that I think would be appropriate for an evangelist.