Re: Win Update Alert - OK - Disappears til later

Harry Johnston [MVP] wrote:
Alias wrote:

You mentioned spyware. This obviously isn't spyware then. More like a nuisance to very few.

Very few? How about over 30,000 in the USA alone?:

http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/genuine/

That's 30000 posts, not 30000 people, and that forum isn't restricted to the USA.

There are 7351 threads, and a random sampling suggests that a sizable proportion of these are not related to false positives, so let's say 5000 people.

There's something like a billion people in the developed part of the world, let's figure one relatively modern computer per ten people, half of which run Windows and have WGA installed; that's 50 million WGA installations.

5000 divided by 50 million is one in 10000. So, yes, I'd consider that a small risk. (For purposes of comparision, about one in 7000 people are killed in car accidents per year in the USA.)

Harry.

Not a risk I am willing to take. I have better things to do with my time than fight a false positive with some *** at Micro$lut. That, and the fact that WGA will not improve my computer one iota, leads me to believe that installing it is stupid. Getting into a car isn't all that smart either, although, to be fair, one will not get killed by installing WGA/N ;-)

Alias


Alias

How do you get your updates then? Automatic Update checks as well. Just a different way.



Alias

Alias
"Alias" wrote:

Gis Bun wrote:
And you can choose not to install it [and hide it] with a "custom" check.
Not that one, the Activex one. You are referring to WGA/N.

Alias
"Alias" wrote:

Gis Bun wrote:
You can always go to the Windows Update site and download the updates. No sense in putting off the security updates.
There's one good reason not to go to the Windows Update and that is that there is spyware waiting for you there in the form of WGA.

Alias
"Craig S" wrote:

Thank you. It's easier to live with something if you know there's no fix for various quirks.

"Alias" wrote:

Craig S wrote:
XP SP3 --- More than not Windows' Auto-Update Alert symbol appears in my System Tray, I clk OK to DnLoad, and then the Alert disappears til a later time - often when I've pursued Updates manually - which then conflicts with the original Update effort that seems to reappear.

Is this common and / or is their a fix for this? Thanks!
It's common and no fix has been made available that I know of. Having patience is the only thing that works. I'm waiting on the yellow shield to reappear as I type this ;-)

Alias


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