Re: Windows XP auto updates stinks!!

Nope, Murphy has a law addressing that. "What can go wrong, will go wrong, and usually at the most inopportune time." Never, NEVER walk away without saving.

Wy0 wrote:

At the risk of being accussed of "ranting", or "nitpicky", I have had a similar problem with Auto Update, which caused my to lose a lot of work and time

Briefly, I was working on an MS Word document late in the day. The documnet had been saved earlier, and I have Word set to automatic save every 10 minutes (the Word default). I was called away, and ended up leaving for the day without returning to my desk.

Windows Update did an automatic update, and then auto restart, during the night.

When I came in the next morning, I found my computer restarted with Windows sitting there waiting for me to supply my windows password. When I did, after boot up, I opened Word, but no autorecover documents sprang up. I opened the document that I had been working on the previous afternoon, and most of it is gone. I ran the document recovery program, but it only turned up the document that opened when I pulled up the document from the folder it was originally saved in.

I admit I have become some what lax due to the autosave feature and dont always hit the save button as often as I should, but I have not figured out where the rest of the document that I was working on has gone.

Bottomline, if Update wouldn't restart until I told it it was O.K., I would have first manually saved the document and then rebooted.

Now, in order to avoid this same problem in the future, I have disabled automatic updates and put a reoccuring event in my calendar to remind to once a week manually update windows. A huge pain, but less than having to restart all the work on the document that was lost.

"Nick Goetz" wrote:


"home_user" <shoorazeel@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:f5kXg.3672$gU6.652@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:


The reminder is not a configurable feature that I turned ON. This is
the way it works on several Windows XP professional PC's that I use. I do not believe it can be turned OFF.

Setting the mouse-pointer to go to the default mouse button is a
convenience feature that I am sure many users take advantage off. Microsoft's Quality Assurance department should have software tests
that include this mouse pointer functionality being turned ON.

I clicked on my application. However, since the Windows Update
reminder dialog came up so fast, the click went to the default button
on the Windows Update dialog. Hence, the PC was restarted.




"Bruce Chambers" <bchambers@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:%23LN7XxZ7GHA.1244@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

home_user wrote:

Once the Windows XP auto-updates mechanism installs the updates on
the system, a dialog keeps coming up - every few minutes - asking
"Do you want to restart the PC".



How curious. I've *never* seen any such reminder. Why do you have
you Update feature so configured, if it annoys you so?



The dialog has two buttons:
1) restart now (the default)
2) restart later

Of course, the genius who designed this annoying dialog made the
"restart now" the default button.


As a convenience for users, certainly. This is common practice among
software developers.



And because I have set the mouse pointer to automatically move to
the default button in a dialog, the mouse pointer points to the
"restart now" button.


Now, how could anyone elso possibly know that you deliberately set
you mouse to such an unsafe (data-protection-wise) option?



I was working on something important and then this STUPID dialog
comes up and the mouse pointer is automatically on the "restart now"
button. My mouse click was meant for a different application.


Were that the case, the pointer wouldn't have been anywhere near the default button, would it. In fact, that reminder dialog box
shouldn't even have been "active>"



However, this stupid dialog comes up and the "restart now" is
pressed without giving me a chance to save any of my work or any of
the web pages I had opened.



Ah..... Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you the one who clicked
the mouse button without paying any attention to where the cursor was
located? I'd say that, given the way you've configured your system,
you got exactly the kind of behavior you wanted.



This has happened to me before.


I can see it happening once, the first time you ever used the OS and installed updates, but if you made the same mistake more than once,
it's definitely no one's fault but your own.


This system is not user friendly at all.


On the contrary; it's dumb-down to the point that I almost dislike
using it. It's far too simple.



Now I have turned OFF the stupid automatic updates.


Well, as it was never a good idea to let updates install
automatically, anyway, this is all to the good. I really don't like
to see people use the Automatic Updates, unless they take precautions
to ensure that no patches get installed without the user's express
permission, given only after he/she has researched each individual
patch to ensure that it applies and is necessary. Due to the nearly
infinite number of possible combinations of hardware, device drivers,
and applications on any given PC, it's impossible to guarantee that
all patches will be 100% harmless. In a very small number of cases,
patches and hotfixes can cause conflicts or other problems. So, as
with all changes to an OS, caution is advised.

All "Critical" updates should be installed. These address
serious issues that can affect a large number of computers. There will be
only rare occasions when a Critical update will not apply. Of
special importance are those that address security vulnerabilities. If people had installed the available critical updates in July of
2003, the Blaster and Welchia worms would not have spread throughout
the Internet the following month. In the unlikely event that
problems do develop, you can always use the Control Panel's
Add/Remove Programs applet or a System Restore Point to uninstall the
troublesome hotfix.

For the "Recommended" updates, simply study the information
provided to see if these updates apply in your specific situation. If they
don't apply, or you're not experiencing the problem(s) addressed, you
needn't install them. For instance, I have no use for WinXP's
MovieMaker, so I ignore any updates to it. Again, in the unlikely
event that problems do develop, you can always use the Control
Panel's Add/Remove Programs applet or a System Restore Point to
uninstall the troublesome hotfix.

In general, though, I've found it best not to download the
"Driver" updates from Windows Update, unless they're for a hardware device originally manufactured by Microsoft. Device drivers provided by
each component's manufacturer's web site are likely to perform better
and offer more features than will the watered-down, "generic" drivers
that those manufacturers provide to Microsoft for distribution via
Windows Update.




I hate it!!


Wouldn't be more productive to learn a little about using your
computer, rather than venting spleen?



And why does the reminder have to come up so often? If I said,
"restart later", I am responsible for the consequences. I don't
want to be interrupted or reminded every 5 minutes or so.


Then look for a way to turn off the reminder.



This is a really terrible design!!!


Not once you've configured it to meet your needs.


is there any way to prevent Windows XP from continuing to shut
down - so important work can be saved - once the shutdown process
has started?


You could try to click Start > Run, and enter "shutdown -a" if you're
fast enough.


--

Bruce Chambers

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Hard to fathom anyone would post something as nitpicky as this...
- change the mouse pointer behaviour
- change the way Windows Update Works
- learn how tie your own shoelaces

NG


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