User fury at Microsoft secret update

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Microsoft has incurred the wrath of customers after forcing an automatic update of software on users who had disabled this functionality.

According to a website called Windows Secret, an update to the Windows Updater program was forced onto users to change a set of nine files. Microsoft patched this files silently even though users had disabled auto-updating on their PCs.

"This isn't the first time Microsoft has pushed updates out to users who prefer to test and install their updates manually. Not long ago, another Windows component, svchost.exe, was causing problems with Windows Update," said Scott Dunn of Windows Secrets. "In that case, however, the Windows Update site notified users that updated software had to be installed before the patching process could proceed. This time, such a notice never appears."

In his company blog, Nate Clinton, Windows Update programme manager at Microsoft admitted that the reports were true and explained why these forced, silent updates were necessary.

"To ensure on-going service reliability and operation, we must also update and enhance the Windows Update service itself, including its client side software," he said. "These upgrades are important if we are to maintain the quality of the service."

He said that one question the company has been asked is why the client code for Windows Update was updated automatically if the customers did not opt into automatically installing updates without further notice.

"The answer is simple: any user who chooses to use Windows Update either expected updates to be installed or to at least be notified that updates were available," said Clinton.

"Had we failed to update the service automatically, users would not have been able to successfully check for updates and, in turn, users would not have had updates installed automatically or received expected notifications," he said.

But users leaving comments on his blog weren't so accepting of Microsoft's reasons.

"The question you're not asking yourself is 'why do users choose to disable the automatic installation?' There are several answers, but the most common is probably 'because Microsoft makes mistakes'," said one user.

Another user said there was no excuse for updating executable code on a customer's computer when that customer had selected to choose whether to install updates.

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