Microsoft Forces Shutdown of Autopatcher

kaufmanmoore writes "Posts on Neowin and Autopatcher's site announce Microsoft has forced the closure of the Autopatcher download section. Details are scarce as to the exact reason for the take down after over 4 years of availability, but an official from Microsoft legal says that it has nothing to do with Windows Genuine Advantage. Goodbye to another useful tool that helped sysadmins apply Microsoft's numerous patches."

Morons.

[adam.dorsey]

Do they even understand the concept of bad publicity any more, or did they just stop caring?

Fuckers hit close to home, this time; Autopatcher was great for keeping relatives on dialup up-to-date.

I noted this on Neowin...

[8127972]

"I asked the representative if Windows Genuine Advantage had anything to do with it and he categorically told me this was not the case, he added that Windows Update for pre-Vista versions of Windows can now be accessed using Firefox and that the concern at Microsoft had more to do with the possible malicious code that could be redistributed with certified Microsoft updates."

Sure. Whatever. We all know that there's never been a case of malicious code distributed with Autopatcher. So I'm calling it now. Watch M$ come up with their own tool that does the same thing as Autopatcher and watch them find a way to turn it into a revenue stream.

Re:Morons.

[tftp]

They just stopped caring. And why not indeed - what is there to be afraid in squashing a little web site? The society is already in deep apathy (if not slumber,) and critical thought is about to send you to jail. Bloggers on /. will rage and fume for a few days, but nobody will notice that anyhow, and all that rage will dissipate in a week, but the good business remains.

MS is cynical and ruthless because it can and because it is profitable; and so it will stay. If you don't like that don't run Windows, it is that simple. With modern Linux distros it's not such a great loss. And if you don't want to fiddle with X settings, get a mac - Apple will charge you for that, but you get a sane system in return, not a buggy treadmill. [full disclosure: I do not own a modern Mac; all I have is an ancient PowerBook with 8.5.x MacOS, and I rarely even power it on, I keep it as a piece of history.]

AutoPatcher needs to think "business" instead

[SplatMan_DK]

They could have avoided a lot of trouble, if they had just signed up as a Microsoft Partner. It costs nothing and would have made them "a co-player" rather than a "security risk".

- Jesper

Re:Are they making the arguement that.....

[prshaw]

How does someone in your company talking to a random Microsoft employee make them legal? How does Microsoft knowing about them make them legal?

I am not a lawyer, but I think I know when one is needed. And I think if that is their claim on being legal they really need to talk to one.

I have no idea if they are legal or not. My point is just talking to someone in a company and having them say they know about you doesn't make what you are doing legal.

But you don't understand what it was good for

[spun]

Patches can be slipstreamed anyway, and for the mother of all 'off-line patching systems' there's Windows Server Update Services.

Slipstreaming? WSUS? Those are useful in entirely different situations. Autopatcher is for when you are visiting your aunt Tilly and don't want to spend four hours downloading all the latest patches for her over her dialup. Please explain how either of your proposed solutions would be even remotely useful in the very common situation of patching a relative's computer.

Why does Microsoft hate their users?

[Snowtide]

We give them the vast majority of our IT budgets, we try to keep believeing in them and still they hate us......

Shenanigans

[krgallagher]

"Microsoft legal says that it has nothing to do with Windows Genuine Advantage. "

I call Shenanigans!

Can we get an auto downloader for these updates?

[Noksagt]

The reason for the ban:

Microsoft will only allow updates to be downloaded from its own servers.

That's certainly MS's right. A technical objection is that one could use cryptographic hashes/signing so that the download source wouldn't matter (and wouldn't it be caveat emptor if users didn't go to MS for updates?), but c'est la vie.

But why can't we make this even vaguely win-win? Provide a utility that will download ALL of these updates (whether the machine thought they were applied or not) directly from MS for use on removable media.

What alternatives are there for those on dial up (or other cases of no or intermittent network connection)? For those who have had malware make edits to their hosts file and/or browser security settings that make obtaining updates directly from MS on the computer they're updating difficult?

Should have bought and funded it instead

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Instead of shutting it down, Microsoft should have bought Autopatcher and funded it.

This service added a lot of value to MS customers. Tearing it down because they were better than their equivalent is destructive.

Doing things that make your products harder to use is bad business sense. It really shows how badly out of touch MS is with the industry.

Understatement of the Month.

[twitter]

... don't run Windows, it is that simple. With modern Linux distros it's not such a great loss.

It's more like a tremendous savings in time and trouble.

Now THAT'S customer service!

[kimvette]

So much for small business and residential users in rural areas [slashdot.org]. You know, this will hurt ONLY paying customers; not the "pirates" downloading slipstreamed ISOs off of IRC and torrent networks (or buying "pirated" CDs in the streets, etc). This also hurts small businesses on cable and DSL connections where there are "unspecified" download caps to their "unlimited" internet services.

  Congratulations, Microsoft. You've shut down yet another tool useful for installing and deploying legitimate Windows, thereby increasing the value of "pirated" Windows offerings AND provided more reasons for users to choose alternatives such as Linux, OS X, and BSD. Good move there.

Why not actually, oh, I don't know, innovate some new features for Windows rather than harassing small third-party developers who offer FREE utilities to make YOUR piece of crap offering easier to manage? Like, say, I dunno, work on a better filesystem [slashdot.org] or something.

Total cost of ownership

[Anonymous Coward]

So I guess now that they have retired the "Get the facts" campaign, Microsoft is actively increasing the total cost of ownership of Windows? After all, they are shutting down a free tool that presumably saved their clients thousands of man-hours.

They may claim that the shutdown is not about WGA, but I can't see what other reason they would have, other than that AutoPatcher competes with some as-yet-unreleased Microsoft product.

Re:Understatement of the Month.

[tftp]

Well, you do lose PC games, since rare a game works under WINE. But I personally fixed this issue by just getting a console, and I am not sorry that I did - the thing just works, and I don't need to throw kilobucks at video cards. And in any case, games are first released for consoles, and only much later - maybe - rereleased for a PC.

Re:Should have bought and funded it instead

[binarybum]

"Doing things that make your products harder to use is bad business sense. It really shows how badly out of touch MS is with the industry."

Nah, it shows what a powerful monopoly they have developed. They can make using their products downright miserable (they practically have already) and people will continue to curse that evil ol' bill gates as they IM each-other on MS messenger in MS vista on their laptops with the "built for windows!" sticker still attached. Plenty of other companies would like to implement the kind of security lockdowns MS has, and are capable of doing so. However, market pressures force them to realize that excessive measures create a barrier to use and sway customers towards friendlier products. Microsoft is not out of touch with the industry. Microsoft is the industry.

Re: Business Sense

[Grishnakh]

I'll fill in #5 for you:

5. Maintain a monopoly in operating systems and office software, and sit back and laugh as people continue to buy and use your products despite superior (but not fully compatible) alternatives because they're either afraid or apathetic, no matter how inconvenient you make your products.

People want to stick with the market leader, no matter how much better any alternative is. They also especially want to be "compatible" with everyone else, which is one of their reasons for sticking with the market leader. So the market leader has no incentive to improve; customers won't abandon them, no matter what.

So why do people here keep saying things like "Microsoft should ..."? No, Microsoft should do whatever they can to make more money, and if that means screwing over all their customers, so be it. If the customers don't like that, they should find a new vendor or alternative. But customers haven't been doing that, and have shown that they're willing to put up with whatever Microsoft does.

I for one applaud this move by MS. Anything they do to screw over their customers is a good thing in my book. I like to laugh as people complain about these actions, about how it just makes their jobs harder, etc. If someone keeps coming back for more abuse, they deserve that abuse.

What's the deal with Neowin?

[belmolis]

Microsoft is within its rights, though obnoxious, with regard to Autopatcher, but since when is it their business what Neowin says about Autopatcher? Where does MS get off telling Neowin to take down their forums? Is MS just being a bully or is there some relationship between MS and Neowin that I don't know about?

Re:Should have bought and funded it instead

[canuck57]

Nah, it shows what a powerful monopoly they have developed.

Microsoft aught to remember how fast Netscape, Visicalc, WordPerfect, ccMail, and a long road kill list lost to monopolistic competition. For functional competition, it will be worse once people overcome unfounded fear of change.

Apple knows this first hand, remember Apple IIe and MS-DOS? I just hope Apple knows revenge is best served cold.

And more and more are turning Linux, Dell isn't selling them because people are 100% happy with Vista. This market can turn on a dime once people realize FUD is FUD. My company just had a fall out with M$, is now considering Linux... go figure. Some fought for years to keep it out (they didn't succeed) and are now gone.

-------

X-Windows for men, MS-Windows for boys.

Re:Are they making the arguement that.....

[kylemonger]

IANAL, but there is a legal principle called laches which allows you to defend yourself against civil proceedings if the plaintiff has sat on his rights for too long. If it can be shown that this service has existed and Microsoft was aware, they can't stop it anymore.

That's great. And there is also a financial procedure called bankruptcy which allows you to defend yourself against your creditors just before you've expended all your assets on legal fees. You'll need it after you've battled Microsoft in court for a few years.

Re:Should have bought and funded it instead

[secolactico]

Can you stick wsus on a dvd/cd and take it to your relative's XP PC that's still on dialup?

Microsoft should release roll-up updates every month or every patch day. That way, new install can simply apply the service pack and then apply the roll-up and be up to date.

While I regret seeing autopatcher go, I understand what I believe are Microsoft's reasons: autopatcher is distributing MS's patches without permission. Besides intellectual properties issues there's the question of integrity. Who vouches for these patches or the autopatcher software?

For many, this makes Windows XP more expensive.

[Futurepower(R)]

The purpose of Autopatcher was to reduce the VERY high maintenance costs of Windows XP. Windows often becomes corrupted and must be reloaded to clear away system files that have been infected with viruses and other malware.

Notice that Microsoft has not released a Service Pack 3 for Windows XP, even though it has been years since SP2 was released. The purpose of the delay is apparently to make Windows XP more expensive, in the hope that people will begin to adopt Windows Vista.

The Windows XP updates of just last Patch Tuesday were more than 20 Megabytes.

Windows Vista is not an option for many, since because of the hassles with Windows XP, many companies have a rule never to use a Windows version before the 2nd service pack is released, and the bugs in Windows Vista are reinforcing that rule.

Also, Windows Vista requires far more resources. Each new Windows version requires more resources, apparently to try to manipulate customers to buy new computers. That serves Microsoft's biggest customers, the computer builders.