Win 7 Updates

[astral]

I allow Win 7 to recommend updates and generally I install them

Recently the updates have

1. Turned off my fingerprint scanner

2. Disabled Restore Points

Both of which I have had to correct manually.

At least I know what I am doing.

What is the point of updates if they ignore the current values of such basic security settings???????????????????

[CharlieH]

I Learned along time ago "if it aint broke dont fix it" !

I turned off auto updates and now select what I want before installling itas they always seemed to make matters worse and just create problems and software clashes etc.

[Pib]

Automatic Windows updates can cause issues sometimes especially with drivers on laptops since laptops can be so picky regarding their drivers/special programs. But with that being said with my two Toshiba laptops approaching 5 years of age, one running XP and one Win7, I don't run the lower horsepower model running XP in automatic download/install mode because the computer would sometimes run very slow/surf the internet very slow for around 20 minutes when first starting it up because it was downloading a bunch of Windows updates...after it got the Windows updates downloads done it would speed up to cruising speed again. I now just manually do the updates every month or so with the sole purpose of that particular computer session to download/install updates with no plans to use the computer for anything else like internet surfing during that update session.. But to the best of my knowledge I never had a Windows update file install that messed anything up on this laptop.

However on my other Toshiba laptop which is my higher horsepower/dual core Intel chip the automatic downloading/installing of Win7 updates don't seem to slow it down as it has plenty of horsepower. So, this computer is set to automatically download/install at will. But there has been one time, maybe two, that the automatic install of updates has messed the computer up somewhat. One is the driver for the built-in Wifi 3945ABG chip; it just don't like at all the updated Intel driver Windows use to try to force on me...it would cause Wifi and built-in Bluetooth disconnects...I would have to reload the driver from the Toshiba website to get the Wifi/Bluetooth function working properly again. But I figured that out and set the Windows update to ignore/hide that update. And "maybe", not sure, maybe, the built-in finger print reader stop working one time due to some Windows updates. Tried reinstalling the Toshiba specific software/driver but the fingerprint reader still didn't work. But apparently just selecting reinstall/repair fell short of getting things back in order. So I completely uninstalled the Toshiba fingerprint utility & driver and did a reinstall and the reader started working again...been working fine now for months even after more and more Win7 automatic downloads/installs.

Yeap, Windows updates will sometimes cause issues but even if you set the update function just to show you what udpates were available and you would then pick and choose what to download/install, I expect most people would still go ahead and click all of them to be installed, especially any important or recommended updates.

[aarn]

Disabling restore points - that is a weird one. Can't think that MS have got it so wrong to allow this...

(Using Win7 starter), you can set your comp (mine is a toshiba NB305) to let you know what updates are available.

Click: Start ...

Control Panel...

Windows Update...

Change settings...

in the Important Updates box, select 'Search for updates but let me choose whether to download them'. That way you can check the size of the updates - important if you have slow download speed and more pressing matters to get on with.

Maybe your System Restore points are hogging a lot of disk space? If you have decent antivirus (I am happy with MSE this past year, just update first-thing on booting), you can shrink the space allocated to system restore (I think the default is 10% of the hard drive, I set mine to 1%):

Start

Control Panel

System

System Protection

Configure...

and from there you can use the sliding scale to limit the amount of space allocated to restore points

Good luck, AA

[pault17]

An MS update disabled restore points? Hard to believe.

Better be sure and check.

OMG, it has been turned off! Thanks for posting your observations!

[pault17]

MS update(s) turning off restore points? Hard to believe.

I checked my laptop and OMG! Restore points turned off!!

I know it was turned on because only a couple of weeks ago I successfully restored a restore point to correct 'strange' behavior after some non-MS software updates.

Thank you Astral for your warning.

[bendejo]

On the other hand, a month or two ago I installed MSE and it did the opposite, turned on automatic updates -- I prefer to be notified, then select what I want. I have no need for silverlight, outlook mail filters etc. The only reason I caught it was I noticed I hadn't been offered any updates in nearly two weeks.

[astral]

I found the problems were deeper than I thought.

The list of disks was corrupted, with a second C: drive, marked as missing

When I tried to slider to set the disk space I received strange errors about the disk properties

Eventually I turned off the Restore Points

and then restarted them and all looks good now.

[wpcoe]

MS update(s) turning off restore points? Hard to believe.

I checked my laptop and OMG! Restore points turned off!!

I know it was turned on because only a couple of weeks ago I successfully restored a restore point to correct 'strange' behavior after some non-MS software updates.

Thank you Astral for your warning.

Ah, so *that's* what happened. A short while ago, maybe a week or so, I noticed System Restore was turned off and had no idea why.