Microsoft Knows Best – Unwanted Windows Updates

Microsoft clearly believes it knows better than users and system administrators of Windows computers. A few weeks ago, even users who had auto-update off received an unannounced, forced upgrade to Windows Desktop Search (WDS), whether or not WDS was even active on the computer. This, without permission from the user. Andy Patrizio reports:

What’s worse, users claim that once WDS is installed, it begins indexing the computer. If a user tries to uninstall the feature, it forces the computer to reboot (no reboot had been required when WDS was initially installed) and then tries to reinstall itself again, when they go to Windows Update.

WDS is installed not only on desktop computers but servers as well. This is keeping the WDS support board very busy.

This isn’t the first time that Microsoft has updated Windows machines without user consent (even if Windows preferences were set to require it). It’s becoming a growing trend and headache for system administrators (who want to have control over and knowledge of updates to their environment) everywhere.

This is just one of many reasons that I use free software. Free software respects your freedoms, your consent, and won’t sneak around behind your back and force upgrades on you. And if it ever does, the source code is available and someone will exercise their freedom to change it.

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