Windows Update On A Disk
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I always dread the question each time I go to my parents’ place. “Can you do the updates on our computer?”. Being a good son, I say “Yes” and then immediately regret my promise.
You see, the problem is that my parents live in the country and all they have is dial-up for Internet connectivity. Pulling down 300 MB of updates over a noisy 56k line with people picking up the receiver every few minutes and asking, “Are you done on the Internet yet?” can get pretty frustrating.
So you can imagine my excitement when I discovered AutoPatcher. Just what does AutoPatcher do for me? Well, here is what the website says:
AutoPatcher is based on the functionality of these special updates, automating their installation process. This way, with only a few mouse clicks and two minutes of your time, AutoPatcher is able to continue with the installation of the items you selected. In short, AutoPatcher combines the advantage of both Windows Update (presentation and description of updates and automated installation), and the special administrative updates (portability and installation without the need of an Internet connection).
That’s right! I can download AutoPatcher back home with my high speed Internet connection and then just run the disk on my parents, computer without taxing their Internet connection (and my patience).
AutoPatcher comes in the following versions:
There is also an Office version in the works but it still needs to be completed.
There are also three different package types, as well, which let’s you download just what you need. The package types are:
- The Full release, which comes with everything (updates, add-ons, tweaks).
- The Lite release, which lacks heavy add-ons (such as ’sunjava’).
- The Update release, which is installed over last month’s Full or Lite.
The only downside (which isn’t really a downside if you know your computer stuff) is that the disks are only distributed via bittorrent. You can download the files as a self-extracting executable or as a bittorrent. (Thanks for the update, Penguin Geek.) If you are not familiar with bittorrent, you can get up to speed. If you are looking for a bittorrent client, I would suggest μTorrent.
There are other users for AutoPatcher other than parents’ computers with slow Internet connections. It is really useful in a corporate environment where you need to update remote systems on a regular basis. You can create the disks and send them out to the remote systems for updating or you can extract the contents of the AutoPatcher files and share them on the network for remote updates, especially if you aren’t interested in installing Windows Server Update Services.
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7 Responses to “Windows Update On A Disk”
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The Fieldhouse Says:
November 30th, 1999 at 12:00 amTech Blog of the Week: Schneier on SecurityA More Secure Home WiFi DesignThe Anatomy of a VirusHigh End Router, Low End HardwareRemotely Accessing ComputersDonated/Trashed a Computer? Your Data May be at RiskWindows Update On A DiskStories of Identity TheftDCoT Helps Find Lost ChildHow Jared Was Hacked!E-Mail Request: USB AntivirusThe Vista SkipRearm DebacleMake Vista Less AnnoyingTorpark 2.0.0.2a ReleasedWhy don’t you just go Google yourself?
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Penguin Geek Says:
May 10th, 2007 at 8:54 amThis is EXACTLY what we need at my work. Thanks for posting about it! One correction, not all of the downloads are torrent. Only the ones that say “Torrents by XXXXX” are torrents. The others are .exe’s (the ones I’ve tried so far).
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Improbus Says:
May 10th, 2007 at 10:07 amGreat post! I sent the torrents (Nov 06 Full & Feb 07 Update) to my bittorrent client (utorrent) at home via its web interface and they will be waiting to be put on a disc when I get home. Excellent!
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JC Says:
May 10th, 2007 at 12:00 pmI’ve heard and frequently hear about AutoPatcher but there are some downsides to it like it being not so frequently updated (latest release is february, while May hotfixes batch was just released last tuesday…)
It can also be a security matter to install something that doesn’t come from an official source and the guys who prepare the update packs may have used an compromised machine that infected the files in the process.
Maybe they can put in some cr@pware on it as well someday without notice…Because of that, some admins or computer repair/hotline person won’t ever want to deploy it in their organization or on their customers’ machines.
There is an alternative named offline update ( http://www.heise-security.co.uk/news/85667/from/rss09 - beware, the english page seems down, so you may have to go to the german one to download the file) which downloads all the hotfixes from the MS servers for you to store on a CD or DVD and carry with you.
It can also download updates in different languages as well which can be a
I only tried it quickly some time ago and it seems to have evolved a long way since then, so maybe people may prefer that to AutoPatcher due to it being slightly safer and always up-to-date (as far as I have understood, it doesn’t rely on a static database or files but directly downloads the lists from the MS server).
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trendless Says:
May 10th, 2007 at 12:44 pmI’ve used AP for a while and my only concern (other than impatience waiting for post-feb updates) is that with all the concerns/rumours over M$ directly/indirectly letting updates out that are DRASTICALLY slowing down computers in recent weeks b/c of Vista’s sales — or lack thereof. That, coupled with an update that is causing a freshly installed & updated computer to constantly pop-up with the ‘unsigned driver’ message everytime ANYTHING new is plugged in or installed makes me wonder if we’re in another hold-off-on-updating period of time, just like when SP2 first came out and it still had bugs that needed to be worked out.
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Dave Moulton Says:
May 11th, 2007 at 9:48 amAP is especially awesome for PC’s with no broadband, and if you’re setting up a new system. It’s also customizeable if you want to add things. I’ve added Adobe Reader, AVG, Spybot, Ad-Aware, CCleaner, and a terminal program to mine for the systems I support.
I am impatiently waiting for the May release!!!!
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Windows Vista tutorials Says:
May 16th, 2007 at 9:40 amNice software. I’ll make sure I mention it in my next newsletter.
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Mel Says:
May 21st, 2007 at 6:48 amI have used AutoPatcher and Heise Offline Update and would recommend Heise Offline Update. This only installs security updates, so will not include recommended but not required patches, but as mentioned earlier they are downloaded directly from MS servers when creating the ISO images. Also, it is only the updates and nothing else that gets installed. With AutoPatcher, all the patches (security and recommended) get installed, but there is also a lot of 3rd party utils and reg tweaks included as well. These can be deselected but a lot of people might not do this and might not be happy with the result after they have been installed.
