some comments on ms updates

When the latest updates came out this week, our IT group asked us to
update our computers and to update all the others we could for people
who were not at work.

On one of the MVP sites, it recommended doing only 4 or 5 at a time.
Some people in our organization had been deficient in doing updates --
one of the computers required 20 updates, including the last two WGA
updates. Not having a lot of time, I just told them all to do them all.
To my surprise, none of them failed. (The one that needed the two
WGAs, I had to install the first WGA, so I could see the rest of the
updates).

Does anyone know why one needs administrator privileges to do the
updates? For those who were logged off, I could not do them because I
didn't have those privileges --IT had to do them. I would think MS
would like the lowliest user to be able to do updates.

Also, does anyone know how updates actually work? Are new .dlls or
modules installed, or is "major surgery" performed on the Windows
programs. Just afraid that some day the computers will get too
confused, and give up.

Just my 2 cents worth -- everyone have a nice weekend.

Jim

Jim Madsen wrote:

<<snipped>>

> Does anyone know why one needs administrator privileges to do the
> updates? For those who were logged off, I could not do them because I
> didn't have those privileges --IT had to do them. I would think MS
> would like the lowliest user to be able to do updates.

<<snipped>>

....because some of the updates make changs to the Windows
Registry and this requires an administrator's privileges.

Software always needs admin rights to install.. there are ways to do it
using WSUS and not need administrator rights and patch at say 3 a.m in
the morning.

Your IT group BADLY needs patch management education and WSUS

Jim Madsen wrote:
> When the latest updates came out this week, our IT group asked us to
> update our computers and to update all the others we could for people
> who were not at work.
>
> On one of the MVP sites, it recommended doing only 4 or 5 at a time.
> Some people in our organization had been deficient in doing updates --
> one of the computers required 20 updates, including the last two WGA
> updates. Not having a lot of time, I just told them all to do them
> all. To my surprise, none of them failed. (The one that needed the
> two WGAs, I had to install the first WGA, so I could see the rest of
> the updates).
>
> Does anyone know why one needs administrator privileges to do the
> updates? For those who were logged off, I could not do them because I
> didn't have those privileges --IT had to do them. I would think MS
> would like the lowliest user to be able to do updates.
>
> Also, does anyone know how updates actually work? Are new .dlls or
> modules installed, or is "major surgery" performed on the Windows
> programs. Just afraid that some day the computers will get too
> confused, and give up.
>
> Just my 2 cents worth -- everyone have a nice weekend.
>
> Jim

I don't think that would work for us, Susan. A lot of our computers are
acquiring data from instruments (our sections' are acquiring data from
gas chromatographs / mass spectrometers). The sequences may run two -
three days straight. A reboot in the middle of the night (or anything
that might interrupt data acquisition) would be a "killer".

In fact, when we installed SP2, that set automatic updates on, and some
of the computers did reboot in the middle of the night, for those not
paying attention to the SP2 instructions. There were a lot of "PO'ed"
analysts around the next morning.

Jim

Susan Bradley, CPA aka Ebitz - SBS Rocks [MVP] wrote:
> Software always needs admin rights to install.. there are ways to do it
> using WSUS and not need administrator rights and patch at say 3 a.m in
> the morning.
>
> Your IT group BADLY needs patch management education and WSUS
>