Tag Archive: update

Last month, Apple endured some harsh criticism from the Windows community for using its Software Update program—normally used to keep Apple software like iTunes and QuickTime up-to-date—to push its Safari Web browser to Windows users. It wasn’t so much the fact that Apple made Safari available for download via Software Update, but that the Safari application appeared as an recommended, enabled-by-default download within the application. For most Windows users, the Safari download would constitute new software, not an update to existing software the user had (presumably) deliberately chosen to install.

Blue screens. Invalid drivers. Yes, Microsoft has released Service Pack 1 for its Vista operating system, and the complaints are flooding in.   One of thebiggest problems seems to be with Symantec, who drivers have a problem with the update, or for which new drivers are not yet available, and won’t be forsome weeks. The drivers cover Endpoint Protection and Network Access Control, two pillars of Symantec’s flagship enterprise security products, according to ZDNet.  Microsoft had warned that those products would have problems.   It’s not only some vendors who are unhappy, A number of users have had grave problems downloading the update. Somehave reported getting blue screens, others with drivers disappearing.   Microsoft has said that it will put out updated drivers ahead of general updates in future, but offered no explanation fornot doing it this time. In an e-mail the company said, "We want our customers to have the best possible experience with Windows Vista SP1, so we have configured Windows Update to initially delayoffering the service pack to PCs with these identified drivers until the issues are resolved. In order to deliver SP1 to these PCs, we worked with our partners to produce driver updates for thedrivers that were reported to be problematic when updating to SP1. Updated drivers for the many of the issues found are available on Windows Update as ‘optional’ updates today. Ultimately, we will beusing Windows Update to automatically deliver these updated drivers to PCs in advance of offering them SP1."  

Following a comparatively quiet update in January, Microsoft’s monthly security update for February 2008 rolls out eleven security fixes to its Microsoft Windows operating systems, six of which the company considers critical. The most obvious of the bunch would enable a specially-crafted Web page to execute arbitrary code on a users’ system; the vulnerability impacts Internet Explorer 5.01 up to Internet Explorer 7.

Three of the critical fixes land in Microsoft Office 2000, XP, and 2003, and also impact Office 2004 for Macintosh, although the more recent 2007 and 2008 released of Office for both platforms are immune. The problem could lead to remote code execution.