Microsoft update blunders going out of control

andrew129260 said:

Plus, there are the threats you do not see and do not announce themselves. Not patching windows and your browser is the worst thing you could possibly do.

Modern malware does not announce itself, it makes every attempt so you don't discover it.

You got that right. The only reason I discovered the virus I recently had was the sound on my music player was breaking up a bit. I initially thought the DVD player (I was using my notebook at the time) was failing until I noticed one of my forums was running a bit jerky. That was when I went to the task manager and saw what was going on. Had that been my much more powerful desktop rig, I might never have had noticed it until I ran SAS (and all it could catch was the adware). Most malware nowadays is much more subtle.

There was another article just recently stating that a lot of malware can be "crippled" by running as a Standard user or Guest user.

lehnerus2000 said:

There was another article just recently stating that a lot of malware can be "crippled" by running as a Standard user or Guest user.

That is true. That is why UAC is so effective, and should be set to the always notify setting. Unfortunately, most people do not use UAC as intended, either turning it off, or using it under an admin account. The protection is better then not having it on at all, but UAC was made with the mindset of running as a standard user, and then using UAC to elevate yourself. But having it set to always notify on an admin account is a good decent step to protecting your pc if you do not want to bother putting in your password to elevate.

I have a new HDD on hand to replace my current one whenever it fails or I see fit- if and when I install the new drive and do a fresh OS install, I'll run the update package to current. Until then I'm not worried. If something there breaks the computer I can restart easily.

I hate how PCs and such try to decide what is best and override the end user's choices. I can understand patching holes, but for every one they patch, there are still many not found or new ones that come up. How long was Heartbleed out there before any security people noticed it? I'm also paranoid enough to think they don't want to patch too many holes- making a totally secure OS would neuter the antimalware industry. Plus it's Microsoft, a company that can't even make an OS that maintains my per-folder view settings. I want my GZDoom install folder to stay in list view sorted by date to find the new WAD packs easily- 7 seems to think that detail view sorted by letter is what I want and I am constantly changing this back. I have this hassle with many folders. Oh I have it on XP too, but at least there I have TweakUI to bypass it. I have tried every setting on 7 to stop this behavior yet it refuses to listen. I have a bit of a lack of faith in MS to really do things right when they can't even get simple things to work.

Flash player decided to disable itself the other day, forcing an update. No huge deal. Then I had to do the same on my XP computer as I use that as a Youtube media device. But for whatever reason, when I updated on the XP computer the Flash update decided to instal McAffee without my consent alongside it. I don't care for that. I don't think any company should install such programs without consent. It kills my faith in even reputable companies.

Berton said:

But for whatever reason, when I updated on the XP computer the Flash update decided to instal McAffee without my consent alongside it

This image shows examples of how that happens and why a user has to be diligent in paying attention:

This certainly seems to be becoming a bigger & bigger problem. Updating often needs careful scrutiny & is like negotiating a mine field.
If I elect to update Adobe Reader I don't want the Google option included, so I have to opt out, whereas it should be the other way around, so if I want it I have to opt in.
If software companies persist with this irritating feature then I will start to look for alternatives that only provide the update & nothing else, which is all I want anyway.
If you inadvertently neglect to opt out of the inclusion then you have to go to a whole lot of trouble to uninstall it & hope that is all you have to do.

People are complaining on the Limited Connectivity problem in Windows 8 and Microsoft didn't care about it.