Slashdot Log In
Microsoft Forces Shutdown of Autopatcher
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Aug 29, 2007 04:20 PM
from the hooray-for-lawyers dept.
from the hooray-for-lawyers dept.
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."
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
One down, X to go. (Score:5, Informative)
Terrific. How long before they break even that? (Score:5, Interesting)
offline update is terrific; its basically a script that wgets the patches directly from Microsoft,
The geinous of M$ can not be understated. Rather than let people share the burden of distributing their "patches" (efficiently [netcraft.com])they will make everyone go to them. We have just seen how well they do at an easier task [slashdot.org].
It won't be long before they only allow "authenticated" clients to download.
The contrast between this and the free software world could not be greater. Every gnu/linux distro has been easy to keep up today for the last ten years and there are verified mirrors everywhere. When you download a package from a mirror, you can md5 sum check it against the original source and most package managers do this automatically. M$ on the other hand, won't even let you distribute what they consider "free". Be wary when someone from M$ advocates BSD, love of your freedom is not the reason for their advice.
Parent
For many, this makes Windows XP more expensive. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Morons. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuckers hit close to home, this time; Autopatcher was great for keeping relatives on dialup up-to-date.
Re:Morons. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.]
Parent
Re:Understatement of the Month. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Should have bought and funded it instead (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Should have bought and funded it instead (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
WindizUpdate next? (Score:5, Interesting)
Are they making the arguement that..... (Score:5, Informative)
"Q: Is AutoPatcher legal?
A: Yes, Antonis Kaladis (our project manager) once spoke to a Microsoft employee and apparently they know about us but don't care what we do! The AutoPatcher project has been going strong since 2003 and never had a sniff of trouble from Microsoft."
From http://www.autopatcher.com/faq/ [autopatcher.com]
Re:Are they making the arguement that..... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:How 'bout getting that in writing next time? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Are the patch installers still available? (Score:5, Interesting)
Torrents for August release plz?
Coming tomorrow (Score:4, Funny)
Torrent links here for August ... (Score:5, Informative)
http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/mystats.php [m2ys4u.co.uk]
http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatch er_DirectX_Aug07_x86_ENU_Addon.exe.torrent [m2ys4u.co.uk]
h er_Extras_Jul07_x86_ENU_Addon.exe.torrent [m2ys4u.co.uk]\
h er_Office02_Aug07_ENU_Core.exe.torrent [m2ys4u.co.uk]
h er_Office03_Aug07_ENU_Core.exe.torrent [m2ys4u.co.uk]
h er_Office07_Aug07_ENU_Core.exe.torrent [m2ys4u.co.uk]
h er_OfficePack_Aug07_ENU_Addon.exe.torrent [m2ys4u.co.uk]
h er_Win2K3_Aug07_x86_ENU_Core.exe.torrent [m2ys4u.co.uk]
h er_Win2K_Aug07_ENU_Core.exe.torrent [m2ys4u.co.uk]
h er_WinVista_Jul07_Core.exe.torrent [m2ys4u.co.uk]
h er_WinX64_Jul07_x64_ENU_Core.exe.torrent [m2ys4u.co.uk]
h er_WinXP_Aug07_x86_ENU_Core.exe.torrent [m2ys4u.co.uk]
h er_WinXP_MCE2005_May07_x86_ENU_Addon.exe.torrent [m2ys4u.co.uk]
h er_WinXP_WMP10_May07_x86_ENU_Addon.exe.torrent [m2ys4u.co.uk]
http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatc
http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatc
http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatc
http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatc
http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatc
http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatc
http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatc
http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatc
http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatc
http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatc
http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatc
http://autopatcher.m2ys4u.co.uk/torrents/AutoPatc
Found via google cache :-)
I noted this on Neowin... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
It was good, but (Score:5, Informative)
That said, the overall rhetoric of this move still isn't nice. AutoPatcher was at the very least, a handy tool for people that didn't know about the above methods, and to leave it 4 years in the game before sending in the lawyers isn't a nice way of treating the user community. A shame if you ask me.
But you don't understand what it was good for (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Windizupdate (Score:4, Informative)
I hardly use IE, and this updates through Firefox.
Which is of course very neat. *cough*firefox fan*cough*
Missing the obvious (Score:4, Funny)
Shenanigans (Score:5, Insightful)
I call Shenanigans!
Can we get an auto downloader for these updates? (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Microsoft is immune to bad press (Score:5, Interesting)
Shutting down Autopatcher is nothing to them and will not affect their business in even a negligible fashion.
I would like to think otherwise but I can't. They are unstoppable.
What about the DVD ISO on MS's download page? (Score:5, Informative)
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=913086&SD=tech [microsoft.com]
What's the deal with Neowin? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?