Topic: Windows Updates

[pamsdish]

I purchased a new lap top last year whilst living in Cyprus, The shop was fantastically helpful, run by English people A couple with their son and a Bulgarian ? girl.Any problems ,go back to shop ,they would sort it tell you what you did wrong ,all at no charge.
Advise on any products you wanted and not always the most expensive.
Also load programmes if you wanted something specific,my comp came with office and winrar installed,dont update !!

My question is ,they advised turn off Windows Automatic updates as a lot of stuff not needed and just loading memory, now back in UK, wondering what is the concensus of opinion, must stress no problems with comp and still loads of memory space .

[BarriedaleNick]

I always run Windows Updates and make sure all my work and home PCs are bang up to date.
They take up a bit of hard drive space but that is about it.

Issues caused by Windows Updates are rare now and I devote a fair bit of time to making sure my update servers and processes at work function correctly.  I'd rather have fully patched machines on the network and Ill take the increasingly rare risk that Windows Update throws me a curve ball..

[djbrenton]

Having Automatic updates turned off opens you up to security issues. The only reason I can think of to advise someone to have it turned off is if it's not a genuine copy of windows. New laptops don't normally come with Office, they come with Works which strongly suggests it's pirate software.

[Gordonmull]

Having Automatic updates turned off opens you up to security issues. The only reason I can think of to advise someone to have it turned off is if it's not a genuine copy of windows. New laptops don't normally come with Office, they come with Works which strongly suggests it's pirate software.

I agree. It sounds a bit suspect, like.

[retro]

As a Microsoft Certified Professional, I will say that this does sound suspicious.

Microsoft Office is about £80 for a key for the basic version.  If it is genuine, there will be a sticker on the computer or given to you.  On a laptop, it's probably underneath.  Likewise, if your Windows is genuine, there will be a Windows sticker WITH a key on it - there are some laptops that are for educational use that don't actually have a key on the sticker.  Whilst they are legitimate, they are often formatted and illegal software is installed.

No software should have its updates disabled - telling you do do this is a clear sign of piracy.

If you must have WinRAR, you will find that you can get a 'free' version legitimately through TrialPay:

http://www.trialpay.com/checkout/?c=2d3e25c&tid=A7DDnll

This is completely legitimate, but you will have to sign up to another service to get it.  This could be something such as signing up for a Flash game site and buying a £5 game, or a casino site and depositing money.

Personally, I would stick with free software and go for 7-Zip.  It's great software!

http://www.7-zip.org/

As for the Microsoft software, you could run the Genuine Advantage tool to see if your Windows and Office are genuine.  Unfortunately, this may disable or restrict your software if it turns out to be pirated.  You can find more information here:

http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/

Microsoft used to operate a "grass and get a genuine copy" policy if you told them about someone who sold you a pirated copy of their software, but I don't think they do any more.  Personally, I would still report the company and take action against them, as they have missold you a product.  Here's Microsoft's report piracy link:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/howtotell/cfr/report.aspx

Incidentally, you have two free alternatives to Microsoft Office.

Firstly, you could download openoffice.org from http://www.openoffice.org. 

Secondly, you could use Google documents.  If you have a Gmail account (or a Youtube account), sign in and you should find a link at the top to documents.  On that page, you can create new documents.  The advantage of this system is that it works in your browser.  This means that there's nothing to download, what you type is saved the second you type it, and you can access your documents from anywhere.

Sorry to be the bearer of potentially bad news, but hopefully this should have given you some idea of how to resolve the issue, and some free alternatives!