Mystery of Microsoft's automatic updates

Software giant Microsoft is investigating why some Windows machines automatically updated themselves and rebooted following last week's Patch Tuesday.

As first reported on Windows user group AeroXperience, last week the automatic updates feature caused some Windows machines to reboot. Users complained to Microsoft that their machines had downloaded and installed updates they did not consent to.

Microsoft on Friday reported that it was looking into the incident, but denied that it was caused by any changes made to its Automatic Update client.

"We have been hearing some questions recently regarding Tuesday's update release changing automatic updating settings," wrote Nate Clinton, a Microsoft Update program manager, in a blog post. "We have received some logs from customers, and have so far been able to determine that their AU [automatic update] settings were not changed by any changes to the AU client itself and also not changed by any updates installed by AU."

"We are still looking into this to see if another application is making this change during setup with user consent, or if this issue is related to something else. We are continuing the investigation, and as I have more information I will update this post," wrote Clinton.

Clinton appealed for those "running into this issue" to "contact support, and they can walk you through the steps necessary to provide logs and other useful data" to Microsoft.

Advertisement

Talkback 0 comments

Latest Videos

Sponsored content

Power Centre - Content from our premier sponsors

Blogs

  • Renai LeMay How reliable is IP telephony?
    Have you ever heard a weird kind of hissing, crackling or popping noise when calling someone on an IP telephony line? How rare is the phenomenon these days?
  • Array Forget the NBN, 100Mbps is already here
    Telstra and TransACT will shortly begin offering 100Mbps broadband to many customers. By moving early, the companies have not only raised the bar for Australia's broadband services, but thrown down a challenge to a government that now faces increased pressure to deliver the NBN as promised.
  • Array IT: Govt's cost-cutting bitch
    The government needs to stop looking at IT as a necessary evil or the place to remove costs when the Treasurer comes calling.
  • More blogs »

Tags

Back to top

Featured