New: MS Windows Security Update CD

[dbMark]

Microsoft has released "Win Update 2004 English NA Feb Direct 2CD Windows Security Kit" which is Part No. B82-00170. It contains all security updates through October 2003 for Windows 98, 98se, Millennium, 2000 and XP. Sorry, I did not see Windows 95 or NT on the list.

Nice that it's free and shipped free, but notice that it does come with a free antivirus and firewall trial software CD. Marketing strategy to grab some easy market share while cleaning up vulnerable code? I would guess that makes use of GeCAD's RAV antivirus software. They bought the company last June and said at the time they were going to use its intellectual property.

You can order the Windows Security Update CD at

http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/cd/order.asp

You can still slipstream the updates, but it's finally nice to get everything from Microsoft (through October 2003) all on one CD for many OS versions. It may be limited to certain languages and/or regions.

 

[dbMark]

Well, I received the CDs. First, as a correction to my prior comments earlier, I noticed that the "Free Antivirus and Firewall Software Trial CD" is eTrust EZ Armor LE from Computer Associates. The label says it is free for one year.

I tried it on 3 Windows Millennium Edition computers which were at different update levels: (1) never updated, (2) failed web site updates, and (3) current.

All 3 seemed to be extracting and processing files, and all 3 rebooted 3 times automatically. If you left the CD in after finished, it would come up and let you go through the process all over again. It cannot detect early in the process whether the system is already up-to-date. Kind of dumb, I'd say.

Apparently the CD does not include much if any of the Recommended Updates such as the IE Navigation Sound Update or the Root Certificates Update.

The CD program does not report which fixes were installed, possibly because it was designed with simplicity in mind for use by the general public. But I was surprised that it does not report any installation failures! That's sad because the MS VM security vulnerability (MS03-11) failed to install on the "never updated" computer and I never knew. In fact it took 2 tries at the web site before it actually installed. As for the "failed web site updates" computer, it also failed to install these updates but no warning messages ever displayed. Obviously that system has major issues and probably deserves a Windows reinstall.

Nor will those CD updates be viewable on the View Installation History option at the Microsoft web site (windowsupdate.microsoft.com).

Not only that, but the CD did not update the internet updates software. When I went online afterwards, I was prompted to accept and install the latest Windows Update software.

Other than those issues, it does what's important, gets the computer updated in a simple manner, reducing downloads from as much as 40+ megabytes to just a few.

 

[dbMark]

Update: I just took another Windows Millennium Edition PC(computer #4), wiped the hard drive, partitioned and formatted it, then reinstalled WinMe. I popped in the Windows Update CD and hoped for the best, but it took forever somewhere between reboots 2 and 3. I finally had to turn it off. I got onto the website and finished the updates without any problems.

So how did the 4 computers fare? There were 2 successes and 2 failures. If I don't count the PC that was already flaky, then it's still only a 67% success rate. I think that's pretty bad.

The CD program needs a status display just like the website of exactly what succeeded or failed. M$ made this CD way too dumbed down, down to the point of being absolutely untrustworthy. How much worse can it get when you can't be sure it worked even though it says it did?

Another point: How many people even know to get the Security Update CD? No one has ever mentioned it to me, rather, it was me telling them about it. I haven't seen any ads for it, nor boxes of CDs set out at the checkout lane of computer stores. This has turned out to be one of the biggest nonevents I've never seen. Is this Microsoft's subtle way to say, "But we really did try to help people update their older computers. It's not our fault only a relatively few people ordered it." Yep, support is there, but the question is, how much does it help?