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Microsoft Calls Stealth Updates Necessary
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-09-14
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Although a Windows user may opt to not have updates applied automatically, the Windows Update service can and will grab its own updates, a practice that raised some security pro eyebrows.
 | | Microsoft Calls Stealth Updates Necessary |  |
People have various reasons for wanting to control the update process on a Windows machine. In many cases, an individual or company may have certain critical software in place that could be adversely affected by a Microsoft-issued update.
For others, having Windows Update take care of patches as they are distributed suits them perfectly. Those who chose otherwise, such as just to receive notifications of available updates, were surprised to find Windows Update exempted itself from that choice.
Nate Clinton, program manager for Windows Update, explained on the Microsoft Update blog that this behavior has been in place for a long time, and is necessary to serve Windows users better:
One question we have been asked is why do we update the client code for Windows Update automatically if the customer did not opt into automatically installing updates without further notice? The answer is simple: any user who chooses to use Windows Update either expected updates to be installed or to at least be notified that updates were available.
Had we failed to update the service automatically, users would not have been able to successfully check for updates and, in turn, users would not have had updates installed automatically or received expected notifications.
That result would not only fail to meet customer expectations but even worse, that result would lead users to believe that they were secure even though there was no installation and/or notification of upgrades.
"WU does not automatically update itself when Automatic Updates is turned off," Clinton said in closing. "This only happens when the customer is using WU to automatically install upgrades or to be notified of updates."
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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