On the second Tuesday of each month, Microsoft releases security patches (see Security updates). This is known as “Patch Tuesday“. Depending on the settings on your home PC you may not even notice this. Updates on business PCs may be handled totally differently.

There are several settings for Windows Update (I’m referring to Windows XP only, I haven’t seen how patches are handled in Windows Vista).
The recommended one is “Automatically download and install“.
I tend to choose one of the next two options:
“Download updates for me, but let me choose when to install them” or “Notify me, but don’t automatically download or install them“.
The last option, “Turn off Automatic updates“, is not a good idea, despite the following story:

When Windows Update reminds me that there is an update, I usually apply the patches to one machine and see what happens. On Tuesday this week there didn’t seem to be any problems. That was until I rebooted the PC and found that I no longer had Internet access! So I went through the updates, chose one and uninstalled it. It turned out to be the right one - KB951748. After a reboot my internet worked again.

It turned out that it was a clash between the changes made by the security update, and the ZoneAlarm firewall (see “Check Point Provides ZoneAlarm Customers Solution for Loss of Internet Access Which May Occur after Installation of Microsoft Update KB951748“) Oh well, just another software conflict.

Posted on July 10th, 2008 by mervyn