Auto updates and ACT!

I have been told:-

"Automatic updates are disabled on this machine and need to remain so.

This is because ACT! V8 does not support DOTNET Framework V2 and V3 which
are offered as updates and other updates may well affect the operation of
this and other programs."

Can anyone shed any light on this, and any reason why auto updates should
not be enabled, with dotnet downloads blocked?

Alan C wrote:

> "Automatic updates are disabled on this machine and need to remain so.
>
> This is because ACT! V8 does not support DOTNET Framework V2 and V3
> which are offered as updates and other updates may well affect the
> operation of this and other programs."
>
> Can anyone shed any light on this, and any reason why auto updates
> should not be enabled, with dotnet downloads blocked?

I hope your company has at least complained to the software vendor. .NET 2 has
been out for a long time; for that matter, .NET 3 is hardly a spring chicken any
more. Any incompatibilities should have been ironed out by now. (Heck, there
shouldn't have been any incompatibilities in the first place; this is evidence
of really lousy coding practice. Note that .NET 1 coexists perfectly happily
with the later versions.)

However, assuming a requirement to avoid .NET 2 and 3, automatic updates
probably wouldn't be a good idea. It's too easy to inadvertently install
something you didn't mean to.

On the other hand, WSUS (Windows Software Update Services) allows central IT
personnel to explicitly choose which updates to distribute to clients, and would
probably be worth looking into. Of course, it depends on the details of your IT
infrastructure.

Is there some other process in place to ensure that security updates get
installed regularly?

Harry.

Thanks, Harry,

This is a small company that have just dumped their (poor) IT support, and
asked me to take over. So I am still getting to grips.

They have been using ACT!8 for a few years, and resent Sage asking £x00 for
an upgrade. I'll start by doing manual updating, a few at a time, and play
it by ear. I see from WUC that dotnet updates are optional, so here goes.


"Harry Johnston [MVP]" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Alan C wrote:
>
>> "Automatic updates are disabled on this machine and need to remain so.
>>
>> This is because ACT! V8 does not support DOTNET Framework V2 and V3 which
>> are offered as updates and other updates may well affect the operation of
>> this and other programs."
>>
>> Can anyone shed any light on this, and any reason why auto updates should
>> not be enabled, with dotnet downloads blocked?
>
> I hope your company has at least complained to the software vendor. .NET
> 2 has been out for a long time; for that matter, .NET 3 is hardly a spring
> chicken any more. Any incompatibilities should have been ironed out by
> now. (Heck, there shouldn't have been any incompatibilities in the first
> place; this is evidence of really lousy coding practice. Note that .NET 1
> coexists perfectly happily with the later versions.)
>
> However, assuming a requirement to avoid .NET 2 and 3, automatic updates
> probably wouldn't be a good idea. It's too easy to inadvertently install
> something you didn't mean to.
>
> On the other hand, WSUS (Windows Software Update Services) allows central
> IT personnel to explicitly choose which updates to distribute to clients,
> and would probably be worth looking into. Of course, it depends on the
> details of your IT infrastructure.
>
> Is there some other process in place to ensure that security updates get
> installed regularly?
>
> Harry.