Windows updates and dial up users

Mon Sep 22 11:19:29 UTC 2003

On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, Roy Bentley wrote:
> Stephen J. Wilcox said:
> > On Sun, 21 Sep 2003 Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:
> >> On Sun, 21 Sep 2003 18:25:50 EDT, Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com>  said:
> >>
> >> > "I recently put this suggestion to Microsoft and their response basically
> >> > avoided the whole issue. Why wouldn't the company want to offer such a
> >> > CD, assuming that's the motivation behind their stonewalling?"
> >>
> >> It would cost money to produce and ship a new CD on a frequent enough basis
> >> for it to do any good.  Consider that we're seeing worms within 4 weeks of
> >> the patch coming out.  How many CD duplicating places are willing to take
> >> on a multi-million run with a 1-2 week turn-around, once a month, every
> >> month?
> >
> > Ok then different idea, assuming that we're all agreed its MS's
> > responsibility to ensure users are patched promptly and without extra cost
> > to the end user.
> >
> > Its not a problem patching on a dialup, it just takes longer, this may put
> > people off when they see their computer tell them its going to take 3 hours
> > to download and theyre paying per minute on the call
> >
> > What if MS included something in the Windows Update that gave the user the
> > option of calling a toll-free number operated by MS for the purpose of
> > downloading.. ?
> 
> Realise that this would require MS to take responsibility for putting out
> bad code. That's quite unlikely, IMO.

Hmm no, they dont have to take that approach, they currently provide updates as 
part of their license agreement to users, this would just be an enhancement of 
their existing facility offering a new level of security whereby users can gain 
access to critical updates without putting their machines at risk by connecting 
to the global Internet...

Steve