Update update

[Terry Coombs]

After installing around 50 updates - including all security updates for IE8 - manually I am now able to access windows update online . The comp is now downloading 104 security updates from M$ .

[philo]

Glad you got it working.

MS is just making it a bit harder to get updates for their older operating systems...and with Win10 they are making it too easy...VIZ: Giving them to you when you don't want them

[Terry Coombs]

One of the first things I did when we got the "new" W7 laptop (Lenovo 4180 refurb from Newegg) was disable the W10 updates . Everything I've read/heard indicates they're trying to force everyone W7 and later to upgrade whether they want it or not . Too many privacy issues for my taste - I won't use cloud storage either . At least with the files all on my own machine I stand a chance of retaining *some* privacy .

[gfretwell]

Cool, I am glad top see they are still there. You had me ready to load a machine to try it. (I always have something around here that could use a brain transplant) When I load one and put SP3 on, the updates come overnight.

Just for gee whiz info, their authentication server seems to be turned off. I have loaded 2 machines the same day with the same key and both of them got updated. When I went for MovieMaker, they passed the "genuine" test.

[philo]

Though I don't use Win10, I am evaluating it.

They don't make it easy but it can be tweaked to turn off automatic updates and huge portions of the default spying can be disabled.

When I do chose to use Windows, I'll be sticking with Win7 for many years.

[gfretwell]

That only takes you up the ladder one step from guys like me with XP.

[clare]

With the "custom install" option you can shut off virtually all the "privacy issue" concerns.

[Don Y]

The wsoffline tools should have had all of the "required" updates. Did it NOT install all of them?

Also, you should review each update as MS's idea of "security"/required may differ from yours!

[Terry Coombs]

The updates are there but I found no way to install them except one at a time . Tht gets old after the first 15 or 20 ...

[philo]

As to which OS I use...as long as it does the job, that's the bottom line.

I have just about every OS you can imagine at my fingertips.

Though I mainly use Linux, I've got both XP and Win7 machines at my disposal. ...but many many more...pretty much every thing between Win1 and Win10 inclusive...

and what the heck, a number of Mac's as well (both PPC and Intel)

[philo]

Yes, the first time I did a Win10 install, I just went with the express setup.

Next time I took the "custom" option and even for Microsoft was shocked by all the spying they enable by default. I suggest no one use that option...though the spying can be turned off later.

If you do not have the "Home" version of Win10, " policy editor" allows manual control of updates and reboots.

Google will give the exact instructions.

[trader_4]

I looked at the demos for Win 10. From what I can see it's different enough from Win 7 to be annoying, but not so different that you can't get it to be close to Win 7 and learn how to use it. A friend said that was his experience, he had to spend time changing some things around, etc.

On the other hand, I see no new features, benefits to me. The only neat thing I saw was that you can mark up a webpage and then send it to someone. For example, you could circle a couple of things on a page. On the other hand, I don't have the need to do that. And even worse, that only works with a touchscreen device.

So, for me the only real advantage would be to be able to move to Win 10 for free and be on a new product that has a longer support life than the Win 7, which is now 3 1/2 more years. I'll probably move before the free upgrade runs out soon. But I also wouldn't be surprised if they extend that.

[Don Y]

There are two programs involved.

UpdateGenerator.exe gives you a dialog that lets you decide which updates you want to download (fetch) from Microsoft. You "tick" boxes for all of the updates that you want and it chugs along for ages getting all of the files.

Once you have the updates on a "local disk", you run UpdateInstaller.exe. This lets you decide which updates you want to *install*. Again, you "tick" boxes in a dialog for things like:

- C++ runtime libraries

- Security Essentials

- Remote Desktop client

- .NET frameworks etc.

There are two boxes in this dialog that you "always" want to tick:

- verify the updates (ensures the files that you PREVIOUSLY downloaded are intact and genuine/signed)

- show log file

Once you begin, it sorts out which updates you NEED to install based on your "ticked" choices. Then, it figures out what prerequisites each of those require (it does this by examining a file that it downloaded previously that declares these prerequisites). It usually takes a long time (several minutes, depending on CPU speed) to sort through this "prerequisite list".

[The prerequisite list says things like: install update KB345039 before KB998744, install update KB747463 if .NET4 is present, etc.]

Then, it chugs through the hundred plus updates applying them in the "correct" order -- and only those that SHOULD be applied.

While this is happening, you see a DOS box (text screen) that just rattles off all of the files that it is installing: "Installing update 1 of 115 Verifying integrity of \blah\blah\update1's_real_name Installing \blah\blah\update1's_real_name ... Installing update 47 of 115 Verifying integrity of \blah\blah\update47's_real_name Installing \blah\blah\update47's_real_name Installing update 48 of 115 Verifying integrity of \blah\blah\update48's_real_name Installing \blah\blah\update48's_real_name ..."

When this is done, it will either say, "Done" or "Please reboot and ReRun". The latter happens when the update process requires a reboot before it can continue.

In either case, when you reboot, you end up seeing a (notepad?) window that displays a log of all of the actions that it did. You can save this so you can have a record of its actions -- which updates it installed, etc. You can run the UpdateInstaller.exe again to select other updates and this log file just grows.

So, if you are only interested in updating XP, ... and, given that XP no longer has any NEW updates, ... once you have downloaded all of the updates with UpdateGenerator.exe, you NEVER need to talk to MS again!

Build a new machine? Install XP using your XP CD (with sp3, preferably). Then, run UpdateInstaller.exe with the files you downloaded.

I.e., your machine has NEVER talked to MS and you have all of the updates in place.

Repeat for the next machine...

Said another way, before your machine is ever exposed to the ugly/nasty Internet, you can have all of the security updates in place!

[Don Y]

BeOS? Unixware? Coherent UNIX? OpusV? Inferno? Jaluna? Amoeba? Mach-US?

[My 2 Cents]

How to get WinXp updates from MSFT till 2019, seems to work.... it's pretty simple.

[Don Y]

I wouldn't trust that. XPe is not the same product as XP. And, by installing the registry hack, you are *claiming* that you are running XPe. If the update process takes your word for it, it will blindly install updates that WILL work on XPe but that might NOT work on XP! In the process, wedging your system (how do you "back out" the offending update? Call MS and complain -- and beg for help??)

[philo]

Looks like I missed a lot!

Did have BeOS at one time.

I do have Plan 9 and several versions of OS/2 though

[philo]

I decided to take one of my many "stand by" machines and update it to Win10.

It all went OK. probably won't use the machine unless I have some kind of a minor emergency...but if it's a few years from now, at least I'll have a newer OS on hand.

[philo]

I still have a few...not in use XP machines , so I might be willing to try the experiment.

Windows XP embedded is really all the same components as a standard XP install, it's simply that corporations using it can customize to leave out un-needed components

[Don Y]

In an embedded environment, the resources available are often of significantly different character.

E.g., you may not have "secondary storage" (disk). Or, you may have it just to *load* executables -- swapping to it may not be possible (read/only) or *durable* (flash with limited write cycles).

How you approach a problem (in software) depends in large part on the resources that you expect to have available.

If, for example, you can read some large object into memory (e.g., the registry) and crosslink individual records (to expedite future accesses to that data), you can choose to:

- leave it there knowing it will get swapped out to disk as needs for memory increase

- explicitly write it *once* to "disk" (flash) with the expectation that you won't be updating it (much) and can just re-read the portions that you need AS you need them

- never load it in the first place and, instead, read it off the immutable medium and go through the efforts of extracting the data more slowly

XPe boxes tend to have fewer and limited applications -- you're unlikely to find AutoCAD running on an XPe box! Often, those applications can remain resident in memory (RAM) and not need to swap.

XPe boxes probably have fewer network interfaces (I can put 2 dozen network interfaces in my desktop machines; I have *four* in a little SBC machine... on the same PCI card!). This simplifies the routing tables and overall design of the network stack. They probably need fewer sockets as you're unlikely to have several "network applications" active simultaneously.

Etc.

It's like saying a motorcycle with sidecar is the same as a big Buick.