An exclusive gaming industry community targeted
to, and designed for Professionals, Businesses
and Students in the sectors and industries
of Gaming, New Media and the Web, all closely
related with it's Business and Industry.
A Rich content driven service including articles,
contributed discussion, news, reviews, networking, downloads,
and debate.
We strive to cater for cultural influencers,
technology decision makers, early adopters and business leaders in the gaming industry.
A medium to share your or contribute your ideas,
experiences, questions and point of view or network
with other colleagues here at iVirtua Community.
Something seems to have gone horribly wrong in an untold number of IT departments on Wednesday after Microsoft installed a resource-hogging search application on machines company-wide, even though administrators had configured systems not to use the program.
"The admins at my place were in a flap this morning because Windows Desktop Search 3.01 had suddenly started installing itself on desktops throughout the company," a Reg reader by the name of Rob informs us. "The trouble is that once installed, the indexer kicks in and slows the machines down."
The blogosphere is buzzing with similar reports, as evidenced by postings here, here and here.
"I'm slighly pissed of [sic] at M$ right now," an admin in charge of 3,000 PCs wrote in a comment to the first aforementioned link. "All the clients have slowed to a crawl, and the file servers are having problems with the load."
A Microsoft spokeswoman said she was looking in to the reports.
The Register wrote:
According to Reg tipster Rob, Window Server Update Services forced Windows Desktop Services 3.01 on the fleet of machines even though admins had configured their system to install updates only for existing programs and the search program wasn't installed on any machines (well, until then, anyway).
It's been a rough several weeks for managers running Microsoft's auto update services. Last month, bloggers disclosed the existence of a Windows patch that silently and automatically installed itself even on Machines configured not to install updates. Critics cried foul on the principle that users should have absolute control over their machines. They also argued that the stealth update could hamper compliance requirements.
Microsoft said the patch was installed on machines only to make sure Windows Update worked properly in the future. Managers promised to be more transparent in the future.
The revelation that Microsoft is pushing yet more installations not explicitly agreed to by administrators is not likely to sit well with this same vocal contingent. Redmond may want to don the asbestos suits now.
Microsoft has posted a long and complex explanation to its Windows Software Update Services (WSUS) blog, explaining the latest case of why software updates are being pushed to users who believe they’ve turned automatic updating off.
The UK Register reported on October 25 that a number of admins were seeing Microsoft Desktop Search 3.01 pushed out to users via Microsoft’s WSUS enterprise patching/update system, in spite of having opted out of this “resource-hogging search app.â€
Bobbie Harder, Microsoft Product Manager for WSUS, explained why some companies were seeing the updated Windows Desktop Search bits (aka, the updated package for KB917013) pushed to their users. It turns out Microsoft changed the deployment rules after the original release of Windows Desktop Search. Harder noted:
“The original update release, released February 2007 as an optional update, was only applicable on systems which had a version of Windows Desktop Search installed. The recent update Revision 105, had the applicability logic expanded to be applicable to all systems regardless if a prior version of Windows Desktop Search was installed, IF of course, approved in the WSUS Administrative UI or via Administrator-set auto-approval rules.â€
Harder summarized:
“The initial February 2007 (WIndows Desktop Search 3.01) release had to be purposely checked/approved by WSUS admin s sfor distribution, because it was an Optional update.
“All subsequent metadata-only revisions to that WSUS admin approved February 2007 release would then also be automatically approved for distribution.
“The initial February approval is retained throughout the life of the update, regardless of revision.â€
does anyone have any clue as to how to get rid of it?
It slows down my system really bad - and the it doesn't appear in the windows uninstaller thingy.
Digg Topic
Tag topic on On del.icio.us
Technorati Search
Post to Slashdot
