THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"

Microsoft updates Windows without users' consent:
http://windowssecrets.com/comp/070913/#story1
» Confirmation of stealth Windows Update | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=779
Microsoft Watch - Operating Systems - Windows Update's Perception Problem:
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/operating_systems/windows_updates_perception_problem.html
Microsoft Watch - Operating Systems - Windows Update's Sneaky Updates:
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/operating_systems/windows_updates_sneaky_updates.html
Signaling IT - Security - The Automatic 'Automatic Updates' Update:
http://blogs.eweek.com/signaling_it/content001/security/the_automatic_automatic_updates_update.html

You can read all those.... 

Microsoft Update Product Team Blog : How Windows Update Keeps Itself Up-to-Date:
http://blogs.technet.com/mu/archive/2007/09/13/how-windows-update-keeps-itself-up-to-date.aspx

Or read that.

Windows Vista Team Blog : An explanation of Windows Update automatic updating:
http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2007/09/13/an-explanation-of-windows-update-automatic-updates.aspx

Or that.

Here's the bottom line.  Communication.  You have these blogs. Use them.  Explain on a page on the Microsoft.com in plain english the process of updating.  The plumbing that is there.  And please do it for Vista because reading those cbs.log files makes me feel like a dunce.   Treat us like adults and understand that people really do stop each month and read those end user license agreements.  We don't trust patches anymore.  They hurt.  We aren't prepared for when they hurt.  We depend so much on our computers these days and I think the underlying problem is that we don't have a good rollback, we don't have good backups, and we really don't understand our systems and then when "change" is introduced we don't know what to do.

All of these posts could have been proactively handled by one blog post on the Microsoft update blog.  One post.  Back in August.  Saying "hey, we're going to be updating some things, here's what's included".  You did it before, Micosoft back in May when you updated the Microsoft update engine back then. 

I'm also assuming that when it's said ""We are also confident that the choice to use Automatic Updating continues to be the right choice." the poster is meaning that turning on automatic updates and letting the system install patches automatically is the right choice.  And I'll take Mr. Clinton to task...not on a server it's not.

Bottom line you haven't earned the trust of many computer users here.  Open and upfront communication ahead of time would go a long way.