About AutoPatcher November 2006...

[cme4pc]

MS did not include WP11 nor .net v3 in November updates. Some of these updates were delayed for additional 2 days :angry:. I was brassed off because i thought ms normaly inc all updates 2nd tuesday of every month.

For MS to release updates on "Patch Tuesday" (as the second tuesday of each month has become to be known) is a rule of thumb, but it's still up to the Lords of MS to decide when to release updates and modules via Microsoft Update...... Originally, MS did so as soon as the debugging or security guru teams delivered the patches.... sometimes they were okay... sometimes they caused as much trouble, if not more than there was to begin with.... there was too much rush involved in closing security holes without attention paid to the other consequences.... in addition.... it didn't make corporate IT support techs very happy when things got screwed up after MS said "apply this and it will fix you up" or the updates applied automatically and without much, if any, notification.... so.... as a general rule.... we now have Patch Tuesday..... it gives everyone a little more time to make sure the job is being done right.....

There are exceptions... such as recently when the vulnerability in vector markup language was discovered.... MS didn't wait for Patch Tuesday to issue security bulletin 925568 and make a patch available ahead of the regular cycle..... many users will never know how close they were to being zombified by the russian porn czars.....

There are also exceptions made when major modules, such as Windows IE7 are ready for release.... While the intention is to put the latest/greatest components / add-ons to the OS on every computer running it.... MS will limit the number of computers for which the patch is displayed as a needed update... this allows them to do better quality control / see if there are conflicts - bugs - etc in the first update groups prior to a general release to everyone else....

There is also user choice.... for example, why should computers installed for business be running the latest WMP release???.... Why do I want to install IE7 when all my plugins are written for IE6??..... Many folks don't want all the bells and whistles, or limit, if not block all, "phone home" functions.... imagine an institutional setitng with 1000 plus computers all chewing up bandwidth to update entertainment info via WMP

So again, you have critical and recommeded updates, sometimes released to all users at once or incrementally, and in a way that users/IT support staff have advanced notification / information and can choose to install or not install.....

The moral of the story.... you can't make all the people happy all the time.... but the way MS Update / Security releases are handled now is vastly improved over methods used a couple of years ago.....

Another of life's little truths.... you can be handing out $100 bills to strangers on the street corner and sooner or later, someone complains that the money is faded or spits at you and accuses you of being communist....

So everyone remember this before getting upset about some silly little meter thing or with the guys putting AutoPatcher together, something they take their time to do and then give away for free to strangers on our little virtual street corner.... its just not good form to get pushy-shovey with peoople trying to do something nice for all us......

[WasabiOne]

For MS to release updates on "Patch Tuesday" (as the second tuesday of each month has become to be known) is a rule of thumb, but it's still up to the Lords of MS to decide when to release updates and modules via Microsoft Update...... Originally, MS did so as soon as the debugging or security guru teams delivered the patches.... sometimes they were okay... sometimes they caused as much trouble, if not more than there was to begin with.... there was too much rush involved in closing security holes without attention paid to the other consequences.... in addition.... it didn't make corporate IT support techs very happy when things got screwed up after MS said "apply this and it will fix you up" or the updates applied automatically and without much, if any, notification.... so.... as a general rule.... we now have Patch Tuesday..... it gives everyone a little more time to make sure the job is being done right.....

There are exceptions... such as recently when the vulnerability in vector markup language was discovered.... MS didn't wait for Patch Tuesday to issue security bulletin 925568 and make a patch available ahead of the regular cycle..... many users will never know how close they were to being zombified by the russian porn czars.....

There are also exceptions made when major modules, such as Windows IE7 are ready for release.... While the intention is to put the latest/greatest components / add-ons to the OS on every computer running it.... MS will limit the number of computers for which the patch is displayed as a needed update... this allows them to do better quality control / see if there are conflicts - bugs - etc in the first update groups prior to a general release to everyone else....

There is also user choice.... for example, why should computers installed for business be running the latest WMP release???.... Why do I want to install IE7 when all my plugins are written for IE6??..... Many folks don't want all the bells and whistles, or limit, if not block all, "phone home" functions.... imagine an institutional setitng with 1000 plus computers all chewing up bandwidth to update entertainment info via WMP

So again, you have critical and recommeded updates, sometimes released to all users at once or incrementally, and in a way that users/IT support staff have advanced notification / information and can choose to install or not install.....

The moral of the story.... you can't make all the people happy all the time.... but the way MS Update / Security releases are handled now is vastly improved over methods used a couple of years ago.....

Another of life's little truths.... you can be handing out $100 bills to strangers on the street corner and sooner or later, someone complains that the money is faded or spits at you and accuses you of being communist....

So everyone remember this before getting upset about some silly little meter thing or with the guys putting AutoPatcher together, something they take their time to do and then give away for free to strangers on our little virtual street corner.... its just not good form to get pushy-shovey with peoople trying to do something nice for all us......

Well said I will be waiting too and thanks for all your hard work AutoPatcher team. :D

[busyanuj]

an "update" release is a must. alternately "full" and "lite" can accompany.