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[Borg 386]

I'm seeing this "Preview" update & the MS site doesn't list the individual KB's, however I did find an article explaining it a bit more fully.

BTW, what do they mean by preview? Does this mean that they are releasing an early version of the updates & see how many computers it hoses so they can use the telemetry feedback to record those errors & fix them?

Note: Preview quality rollup patches should be considered as beta releases. It is not recommended to install them unless done for testing purposes, or if they fix an issue that you are experiencing on a Windows machine.

KB3192403, KB3192404, and KB3192406: Quality Rollup previews - gHacks Tech News

 

[Brds7t7]

That's the way I look at them. Just betas for next months recommended updates. I'll be ignoring those.

I don't mind beta testing some software, although I do it a lot less these days. But I'm not keen on beta testing MS updates for them.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Indeed it's the way I look at all windows updates even the Important ones

 

[Brds7t7]

Are you implying MS sends out some dodgy updates Thrash? HOW DARE YOU! :roflmao:

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Dodgy or not system images are locked and load if things get dodgy
All updates are beta

 

[lehnerus2000]

BTW, what do they mean by preview? Does this mean that they are releasing an early version of the updates & see how many computers it hoses so they can use the telemetry feedback to record those errors & fix them?

It's more likely that MS will use the telemetry data to trying to discover why 100% of W7 installations weren't bricked.

Additional
After a few reboots my Windows Update issue seems to have disappeared.
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[Frogpond51]

Portable Update

Hi Borg,
Thank you for this post of offline updaters. Have been trying to understand the User interface from the author's page since June, but found it lacking in clarity. This link shows a much simpler and easier way to understand it's usage. [ 4 Tools to Update Windows Offline and install Hotfixes from a Local Source • Raymond.CC - Page 2 ] . Have been hesitant/wary, trying to update a friend's computer from a 2yr old Macrium image. After seeing this, am more confident. Don't want to bork-it-up...

Cheers!

Yes, I understand your concern. I'm a bit wary too, but I will be trying a couple of them out down the road. My hope is that these updaters will separate the cumulative patches into individual KB's & then you would still have a choice which one to apply.

All of this months updates looked security related so I haven't tried uninstalling one via command line, but should one come up that looks suspicious or I don't want, then I will try that method of removing it after the cumulative has installed. Not sure if individual patches will be able to uninstalled, but I'm hoping this works & keeps us from having to resort to 3rd party telemetry blockers.

Hi Borg, sorry for late response, I did not see your reply.
Have been playing with the Portable Update app. FWIW, when I first tried to update the target [Offline] computer it seemed like it would not update from the donor [Online] computer, even after several attempts. So I manually installed the March 2016 Windows Update Client KB3138612 in offline mode. Rebooted then ran Portable Update again [Offline] and it installed all my donor WU's in about 45 mins. So now I know, wish the author's page would include that info for us noobs. At least now I have a WU cache that is fairly complete up to Sept. 2016. Not sure if I trust anything after that until I can see what others here have to say about these newer "Rollups" & "Cumulative" updates. BTW, when running Portable Update, it appeared that it was installing only the applicable updates for that computer and in the correct order. Only had to re-boot one time to confirm the updates where there. Also when downloading updates from donor, I had the choice of what to install in the prog cache, and also has the choice to [select/de-select] from the list before installing into the target computer. I still have a "Look for Windows Updates" problem in infinite loop, but everything else appears to be working good. Will be posting a new thread to get help with the last problem to avoid confusion.
Cheers!