Microsoft Updates

September 2007

Microsoft downplays stealth update concerns. Microsoft Corp. today downplayed the concerns over undercover updates to Windows XP and Windows Vista, saying that silent modifications to the Windows Update (WU) software have been a longtime practice and are needed to keep users patched. “Windows Update is a service that primarily delivers updates to Windows,” said the WU group program manager the team’s blog today. “To ensure ongoing service reliability and operation, we must also update and enhance the Windows Update service itself, including its client-side software.” Microsoft was moved to respond after the popular “Windows Secrets” newsletter looked into complaints that WU had modified numerous files in both XP and Vista, even though users had set the operating system to not install updates without their permission. In many cases, users who dug into Windows’ event logs found that the updates had been done in the middle of the night. Windows gives users some flexibility in how their PCs retrieve and install updates and patches from the company's servers. But some users have filed accounts of stealth updates to WU even when they had completely disabled the automatic update feature in the operating system. The program manager disputed those claims, saying, “WU does not automatically update itself when Automatic Updates is turned off, this only happens when the customer is using WU to automatically install upgrades or to be notified of updates.”