in

ASP.NET Weblogs

Phil Scott's WebLog

Quite exciting this computer magic

Critical Updates are Ready to be Installed

I'm pretty guilty when it comes to keeping on top of install “critical updates.”  Many times, the little ballon pops up when I'm actually doing something on my computer.  Reading an article, playing solitare or perhaps even doing work seems to be it's favorite time to pop up.  I've gotten pretty good at dismissing it.  Remind me in three days I tell it.  I'm not really scared of my PC being hosed by the updates, my concern is having to restart my computer.  If I'm at work, I'm probably in the middle of something, or getting ready to start something else.  No time for a reboot! 

So here's my brilliant idea:

Simple, huh?  Nobody likes to have to reboot their PC when they turn it on, but who would care if the updates install when you turn it off.  It can continue just fine on the next boot up.

Of course, who actually turns their PC off anymore?

Published Sep 11 2003, 03:36 PM by Phil Scott

Comments

 

Tobias Luetke said:

You do realize that you can install them and just not reboot? That does basically exactly what you suggest here its just more flexible because you get to choose when to reboot ;)

Also you can configure the auto updater so that it should automatically download the updates, install them at a certain time of the day ( say, 3 am ). If it installed any updates which need a reboot you will see a little notification about it first thing in the morning.
September 11, 2003 4:09 PM
 

Phil Scott said:

Yeah, I have my work machine setup to install at 4 a.m.

But I was thinking more along the lines of Joe Home user.
September 11, 2003 4:15 PM
 

Lotas said:

Hmmmm. i havent had my machine off in quite some time. well properly off anyway. i have rebooted once in the last 3 weeks. Tobias makes a good point in not having to reboot when you install an update. do they function as well as they should if you dont update though?
September 11, 2003 4:15 PM
 

Phil Scott said:

If you don't reboot, you aren't patched. Windows probably has a death grip on the dll or whatever that needed to updated, so it needs to do the install prior to windows booting up.

That is clearly the problem, the death grip situation. Hopefully in Longhorn we'll see something like the shadow copy stuff we have in ASP.NET so that reboots aren't needed for critical updates.
September 11, 2003 4:38 PM
 

Tobias Luetke said:

Quite often the stuff can be patched without even needing a reboot. Patches usually replace files. There is a special flag for the CopyFileEx api which tells the system that if the operation cannot be completed it should be done upon next reboot. In this case it returns a special return value and the Please reboot message is presented at the end of the patch process. It happens every once in a while that you don't have to reboot.
What I'd really like to see is a more intelligent patching engine. For example the archive could contain a little vs script which would just stop the a service which than can be updated without a reboot and restart it after wards ( if it was running ).

Frankly, the constant reboot thing is the last oddity of windows. Linux does that much better than windows.
September 11, 2003 11:39 PM
 

Dylan Greene said:

The icon Critical Update puts in the taskbar is so univerally ambigious why would anybody know what it is? The combination of the Windows logo with the Earth? How about a big yellow (!) to get ther user's attention that there's updatin' need to be done?
September 12, 2003 2:02 PM
 

dee said:

nil
March 3, 2004 5:17 AM
 

dee said:

abcd
March 3, 2004 5:17 AM
 

Julie hegbloom said:

Hi, I was wondering if I need to do this critial updates?????????
June 12, 2004 6:26 PM

Leave a Comment

(required)  
(optional)
(required)  
Add
Terms of Use