ISP != Microsoft

[Anriana]

Okay, I understand that not everyone is a computer expert, but is it really asking too much for people to know what Microsoft is and what they do? The only possible reasons not to are 1) Not using a computer 2) Only using Apple products that other people take care of for you. I've had customers who don't understand why my company (an ISP) has limited support for Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Windows, but this customer was beyond belief.

Background: A few days ago Microsoft released a new update for Windows. For some reason this wasn't compatible with Zone Alarm until you turned down the firewall settings or downloaded a ZA patch. This has caused all sorts of queue fun for us.

I had a customer call today absolutely livid that we had not prewarned her that Microsoft was going to release a patch. No matter how many times I told her we would have no way of knowing what another company is going to do, she insisted that we should have known they were going to release it and kept her from going offline. She simply could not grasp that this was nothing to do with the ISP and how unreasonable it was to expect us to know what firewall she had and that it would be affected by a patch another company was releasing. It was incredibly frustrating and mind-boggling.


As an aside, my new favorite line is "I'm sorry you feel that way, is there something I can help you with?" Semi-apologizing, offering to help, and still being incredibly snarky. Win!

[Evil Queen]

Who downloads the Windows Updates anyways? (I don't, but then again, I haven't used Windows in 2 years now)


It gets worse, Anriana. It gets much worse. Just wait until they call you complaining they locked their keys in their car because "It has a computer in it!" It's bound to happen.

[CorDarei]

Who downloads the Windows Updates anyways? (I don't, but then again, I haven't used Windows in 2 years now)

Uh...... Everyone who runs a windows pc and wants it to be secure. Whether or not you use windows still, its still the most used os, and therefore the one most prone too attack.

[Samaliel]

Yup. Most updates are security related, thus not downloading them leaves plenty of breaches for malevolent people and/or pieces of code to exploit.

[Evil Queen]

I doubt everyone does. Otherwise it would be an automatic thing installed on all Windows computers. I had a windows PC for 8 years before it finally bit the dust on me and my Mother still has her old 1995 that's still running. Never downloaded the updates. My cousin? Downloaded every update that was available for Windows and crashed the sucker on a bad update.

But she was a jerk anyways.

I'm waiting to take over the world with Linux.



Edit: Samaliel got a post in before I could.
Okay, so it's security. But having a good firewall, anti-virus and spybot remover works pretty well without the security patches.

[CorDarei]

I doubt everyone does. Otherwise it would be an automatic thing installed on all Windows computers.

you can set it to automatically do updates

I had a windows PC for 8 years before it finally bit the dust on me and my Mother still has her old 1995 that's still running.
Never downloaded the updates.

i'm pretty sure they stopped making updates for 95 when Me or XP came out. and if you had a Windows XP machine for those 8 years you had a pc, do you remember the blaster virus? or it's variants? a security update that was available six months before it struck was out, but since not many people downloaded it, their pc would reboot about every 5 minutes they were online. There was alot of money to be had in virus fixes in those days.

My cousin? Downloaded every update that was available for Windows and crashed the sucker on a bad update.

if it's every update (including software and hardware patches) i can see it crashing. Only updates that need to be done are the critical ones. most of the MS h/w updates will cause issues because they're bad drivers.

But she was a jerk anyways.

Then i'm sure she deserved it

I'm waiting to take over the world with Linux.

good luck with that

Okay, so it's security. But having a good firewall, anti-virus and spybot remover works pretty well without the security patches.

i don't think having anything but the security patch would have prevented the blaster virus from shutting down your pc.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Who downloads the Windows Updates anyways? (I don't, but then again, I haven't used Windows in 2 years now)

Believe it or not, mine are set to automatic due to the fact that if it's not, I get that annoying reminder in the taskbar from Windows Security Center reminding me that my updates aren't set to automatic. And even if I close the message, it'll pop up periodically (as in a few minutes later.)

So I leave in on automatic . . . but then they're usually security-related anyways and I don't particularly relish the fact that somebody with nothing better to do could try to sneak something into my computer.

All in all, leaving it on automatic is the lesser of the two evils (especially with Vista.)

[UncleImpy]

But having a good firewall, anti-virus and spybot remover works pretty well without the security patches.

I have news for you. Speaking as a crisis manager that deals with enterprise system admins, I dont care what OS you use...*nix, AppleOS, Windows...if the OS manufacturer releases a patch that fixes a security vulnerability, and you DONT install it? You deserve all the heartache you're going to get.

In comparison, that's like a prison guard saying 'We dont need to repair that gaping hole in the wall, because the guards will shoot anyone that tries to escape through it' when a repair crew could just as easily fix the wall.


Always install security patches. Opinions like what you've voiced are what result in botnets.

[Pedersen]

I had a customer call today absolutely livid that we had not prewarned her that Microsoft was going to release a patch.

Unfortunately, from the customer's perspective, she was 100% in the right. After, she didn't buy Windows. She bought a computer (Dell, HP, Compaq, whichever), which came with the basic programs needed to get online, run programs bought at the store, etc.

She then paid your company to give her access to the internet. And what happens? Her computer gets an update through the internet which causes other programs to stop working. No wonder she was unhappy!

Mind you, I happen to agree with you. I know the difference (considering what I do for a living, I'd better know the difference). People should know more about their computers than they do. On the flip side, they should also need to know less. It's a tough balancing act that nobody has gotten quite right yet (no, not even Apple).

If you have any ideas on how to educate the customers, I'm all ears. Been trying to do that myself, and not been very successful.

Who downloads the Windows Updates anyways? (I don't, but then again, I haven't used Windows in 2 years now)

Let's see, a list of people who don't update:

• People who don't turn it on.
• People who've dealt with some severely bad MS updates in the past, and are therefore unwilling to update (the rule used to be to never install an odd-numbered service pack).
• People who are required to use a specific version of a specific program to do their job, and that specific version is incompatible with any updates to the OS (for instance: Might be incompatible with XP SP2).
• People who have been mis-identified as pirates by Windows Genuine Advantage, and have therefore refused to use the updates.
• People who need to have older versions of Windows around for testing purposes (usually developers).
• People who have an unauthorized copy of Windows, or who have cracked it to remove specific features (like the aforementioned Windows Genuine Advantage).

Those are the ones I could think of off the top of my head. And quite a few of them I happen to agree with the assessment that updates should not be installed. There are very legitimate reasons to do avoid the installation of updates.

i don't think having anything but the security patch would have prevented the blaster virus from shutting down your pc.

Actually, there was an extremely simple and effective method to prevent Blaster (and many of the others from that time period): A hardware firewall. Such a device would actually prevent the network traffic from reaching your Windows XP computer, and you would therefore be immune to it. Unfortunately, such devices were uncommon, which is why that virus spread.

Oh, and no extra software required to prevent it. Your computer's performance is completely unaffected by the presence of a hardware firewall.

[Evil Queen]

and if you had a Windows XP machine for those 8 years you had a pc, do you remember the blaster virus? or it's variants?

Windows 98, not XP. I had one virus in all the years I had the computer and it was online all the time.

Since I seem to be wholly outnumbered on the nice chat about security patches, could my computer have just been a fluke?

[Qaeria]

Uh...... Everyone who runs a windows pc and wants it to be secure. Whether or not you use windows still, its still the most used os, and therefore the one most prone too attack.

I'm sorry, but including the word secure with windows, is akin to saying a collander / strainer makes a good diaphragm.

We had fun with patch tuesday ourselves, but it was compounded due to an issue on our DNS server as well. I feel your pain.

[HawaiianShirts]

Background: A few days ago Microsoft released a new update for Windows. For some reason this wasn't compatible with Zone Alarm until you turned down the firewall settings or downloaded a ZA patch. This has caused all sorts of queue fun for us.

So that's what has been going on with my computer! I just did a restore back to Tuesday and everything started working again, but it really threw me off. Forgive me for bringing work into the forum, but, do you happen to have a link or some other form of information I can get to that will help me prevent that problem from showing up again? (Feel free to send a PM, if necessary.)

I had a customer call today absolutely livid that we had not prewarned her that Microsoft was going to release a patch.

I hate that kind of customer. Because we work in retail or customer service or whatever it is, we're supposedly lower life-forms incapable of individual thought, emotions, or ambitions. And yet, we're also supposed to be capable of mind-reading, remote-viewing, clairvoyance, and telekinesis.

I've had some customers actually bring some broken or malfunctioning piece of electronics into the store and ask me or one of my co-workers in full seriousness: "Why didn't you tell me it was going to break?" This was usually followed by a proclamation of, "If I knew I was going to have this much trouble with it, I never would have purchased it in the first place."

Can you imagine that conversation? "I'm sorry, sir. I wouldn't advise you to buy this product. It'll stop working for no apparent reason exactly two years, four months, seventeen days, and five hours from now. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go back to cleaning the restroom for minimum wage."

I really wonder what some of these people would think or say if I could record their comments, wait a day or two, and playback the recording to them. Would they, in another state of mind, actually see the stupidity in their statements?

[powerboy]

Who downloads the Windows Updates anyways?

I do & I check for the critical ones once a week. My auto update does not work that good.

[UncleImpy]

On a lighter note, EQ, the customers you get sound pretty par for the course. Probably the same ones that call us and say 'My Microsoft is broken! Fix it!"

Sigh. Yes buddy, 'my Microsoft' is feeling pretty broken right now too.

[deafcat24]

My vista computer is on automatic updates, just did one this afternoon in fact.

One automatic update I hated was when my computer upgraded from XP SP1 to SP2.

Took an entire week to get it all downloaded. Then took an hour to finish updating.

My sister got lucky, because she missed her computer's update, and therefore got it on disk from Microsoft. Didn't havee to worry about the long downloading time.