Windows Updates: Now in bulk

Reinstalling windows is a pain regardless of where you live.  It is a particular hassle if you live in a low-bandwidth place, like many missionaries I know.  Downloading endless numbers of small security patches takes forever…or is simply impossible.  I’ve often wished I could easily download one large file that I could archive on a CD for future updates, redistribution to other missionaries, etc.

According to Ed Bott, Microsoft quietly began doing this earlier in the year.

Microsoft has been doing this since the beginning of this year, apparently, but this is the first time I’ve noticed it. Security patches for August 2006 are now available as Bulk Updates in ISO-9660 CD image format. The files can be burned onto blank CDs, used on multiple machines, and archived.

This is good news for people who prefer to do updates manually. No more downloading a dozen or so individual patch files and then saving each one. Just make sure you get the right CD image(s). One is for Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003; another is for Windows XP; and a third is for IE.

If you want to go back and get earlier releases, try this page, which lists all updates in ISO image format since January 2006.

If I were an IT-minded missions administrator I would seriously consider downloading these, burning them on CD’s and distributing them to my personnel.  It would save the guy in the field a huge amount of time.

via Ed Bott