I'm very pissed at Microsoft right now.
http://www.autopatcher.com/

Sorry to hear about it. I was really looking forward to using this program on my next OS reinstallation.
It's hard to believe MS is happy with millions of computers clogging their servers with upgrades that can take hours with rebooting and reconnecting.

Never used it anyway....

this is exactly the reason why i download every update as a stand-alone and integrate them into my unattended dual layer dvd

Actually it doesn't surprise me. Of course all it would take is one complaint to Microsoft from someone to steer Microsoft's eyes towards that site and request them to stop.

Autopatcher took about with a conservative estimate less than twenty minutes to download and use though.

I highly doubt the notion that Microsoft prevented the Autopatcher team members from continuing the project because of a customer complaint. I wouldn't be surprised of an annoucenment from the aforementioned corporation that encompasses information abouts its own program for cumulative patches in the future now that the competition is no more.

The inclusion of Mozilla Firefox didn't help their cause, considering Microsoft prohibits the users of the previously mentioned browser to basically update their systems with Microsoft Update ffs.

I have used AP (limited but nonetheless used) and am very grateful to those who contributed their personal time and effort to develop and support it - and, I want to thank them for that effort.

Frankly, I hope that the "aforementined corporation" (AC hereafter) really does produce its own standalone patching and updating tool - for both installed OS's and for slipstreaming. AC "could" (notice the distinction with respect to "would") produce an authorized and hopefully reliable package that would properly update/integrate AC's patches, updates, upgrades, and new items (IE7, IE8, Live Mail, WMP11, etc.) and have their own registry entries "correct" (maybe....). So, not all a bad thing if AC got into the game.....

The "current" system does indeed make load mouth sounds....<g>....I am in the process of bringing online 6 brand new machines at work. All are XPPro SP2 as delivered from HP. Straight out of the box the first pass on WU needs 97 updates, the second pass needs 11 updates, and the third pass needs 3 updates. The current philosophy is broken and there is no reliable tool from a corporate perspective to fix this. The ideal would be an authorized slipstreaming tool produced by AC that would permit the creation of "authorized" fully up to date install points for both the AC OS and the AC Office.....Enough....I am beginning to rant...

Anyway, an AC product would not "necessarily" be a "bad" thing if that is the result of the AP demise.

Who knows for sure.

In any event Microsoft got rid of them which was bound to happen at some point. I'm just surprised it took them a few years to do anything.

When you used Autopatcher, did you use it for the entire upgrade process after loading a new OS installation? If so, is it similar to MS in that it installs a few updates, asks for a reboot and so on, or does it just install the entire core update in one install and then reboot?


It's still available for download on Fileforum (I'm not sure how much longer they'll have it up):

Windows 2000

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/AutoP...00/1100007397/1

Windows XP

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/AutoP...XP/1067103058/1

Yes & No - not a clear answer but dependent on what you select on the first pass. One can "essentially" obtain all the patches and hotfixes in one pass for what was installed on the machine at that point in time - and perform a complete update that requires only one reboot. The dependency has to do with what extras and/or optional components one "adds" during the first pass update. Logically, if one selects certain non-critical components or some particular extras that are/were not part of the XP install or what was installed on the machine at that point in time, then updates for those "new" components would not have been identified in the first pass AutoPatcher analysis. After installing said components, one will/would generate hotfixes and updates for those components on a subsequent AP analysis pass.

To summarize, you will get everything in one pass and one reboot but, only for components that were (or could be) analyzed by AP.