Patch Tuesday

I hate Patch Tuesday. Rather, I hate the Wednesday following a Patch Tuesday. For those unaware, Patch Tuesday is the name given by the Internet to Microsoft's policy of releasing patches for its operating systems on the second Tuesday of each month. Due to my lack of preparation (and general laziness), I am almost always surprised when I go to any of the PC's here at DES and find the happy little voice bubble in the lower right of my screen that mockingly informs me that a "really important and useful update has been installed on your computer! Because of this, we (the trusting good folks at Microsoft) have deemed it necessary to forcibly shut down your applications (hope you saved!) and restart your computer! Have a nice day!"

I know I can just set it up to not do this, but really, who has the time to go into each individual setting, and tweak it to something useful? No other operating system (that I know of) does this. OSX requires you to run (on demand) its Software Update, and usually you can find a blog post somewhere that tells you about it. Linux is even more "out of your face" about patches.

I get it. Microsoft is protecting the unwashed masses by taking a necessary maintenance chore, and automating it. No muss, no fuss. Simple.

Only it's not. Look, if the unwashed masses cannot bother to do routine maintenance chores, are we honestly proposing that they are savvy enough to make sure that all of their work is saved (speaking of saves, I dig the autosave feature of blogger), and all of their applications are neatly put away? The VP of DES routinely leaves all of her stuff open, citing ease of use. I can just shake my mouse and go! This is the same person that complains bitterly about "the stupid computer" that restarted and messed up all her work! Then the IT department calls and complains that the VP is complaining again, and what do we do about it, and when are we getting the new servers in, and...

I digress. I understand why it happens, but it is interesting that most larger companies hold off on updates, then roll them out to the masses probably washed by now.

So today, I begin the arduous task of directing the IT department to change the "Automatic Update" settings on all of our PCs. I know the head of IT will thank me for simultaneously decreasing the overall security of the network, while making the IT staff interrupt everyones' work by right-clicking on their 'My Computer' icon, left-clicking on 'Properties', left-clicking on the 'Automatic Updates' tab, then left-clicking on 'Download updates for me, but let me choose when to install them', then left-clicking on 'OK'.

The VP will be happy, until the next Patch Tuesday. "Why does the stupid computer keep bugging me about an update? Can't the IT guys just fix this?"

Meh.