Hi all, the settings in Windows update is it wise to set to automatic,my old pc had updates that were not needed for my system yet they were sent, does Microsoft just send whatever to your machine,if so how do you work around the worse of Windows update,how do you know which update to install. my other question is regarding Patches and iv read a few stories were Microsoft have sent a bugged patch thats caused more problems than its cured,how do you deal with these.thanks
How-To Geek Forums / Windows 8
Windows update,and Patches
(20 posts)
If you have the time and inclination to research each and every update and decide whether or not your computer deserves it then I say go ahead. Microsoft analyzes your computer setup to decide which patches to push to you. They would be different for different computers. Personally I do not have the time or inclination to do so so mine are installed automagically.
I have never, ever, since Windows 1 had a problem with any updates.
I think checking which updates are good and which ones are bad is a lost venture. Best is to either keep the restore points that are always created before an update (you have to define a large shadowstorage) or - even better- make an image before updating.
The advantage of images is that you control them and you can keep them as long as you like. Restore points have the habit of disappearing at times for no obvious reason.
If you go the image route, you should keep all user data in a seperate partition. That way you don't lose any of your work when you restore the system. If you restore with restore points, the user data will not be touched.
@ Lighthouse iv made a habit of doing that ;) i take it you dont agree to automatic updates, what would you suggest bearing in mind im a long way off earning my geek badge, im even more confused with Patches,are these downloaded or do you have to hunt for them yourself, general question has anyone herd of Secunia Personal http://secunia.com/vulnerabili...../personal/
Sometimes I click on the more information just to see what MS is throwing my way. They used to have a good explanation on the side but now you have to click on "more info". You know what you have in your system and should be able to scan down the list and see if any or all pertain to you. Once you get use to doing this it doesn't take but a couple of minutes. Beside you can always restore any that you have hidden if you feel you need certain ones.
I have mine set to notify but let me decide.
I'm not as paranoid as Lighthouse (but I must hasten to add that he has forgotten more about computers than I'll ever know). I let M$ download the updates but I wait only until Friday or Saturday to install them. I've found that if there is a problem with an update not playing well with certain software, I would have read about it by then. Like germ-x, I do take a look to see what the updates are for to avoid junk like Bing getting put on my machines.
I use Secunia and have been happy with it but it does get false positives sometimes. I recently installed Adobe Acrobat Standard XI (I was happy with 9.x but it reaches EOL this summer) and chose the install everything option. One of the things it installed was a folder for Reader that only had empty sub-folders in it. Secunia hit on it as being out of date (duh!) and wouldn't stop until I deleted the folder and ran Glary Utilities to clean out the registry entries for Reader.
It also has been saying for the last few weeks that a certain xml file is out-of-date in Windows but Windows Update says I'm up-to-date on everything. I've been ignoring that one.
