TOOL TRASH[tool thats what you are]
You can say it all you want, but it doesn't make it true
I repeat, saying it (over...and over...and over) doesn't make it so
Gotta hate this clueless TOOL who can never tell what's going on. :)
form left field. You can't even be relevant [ Is this a typo ?or are you just stupid?]
had an issue with Google Desktop the yahoo or Google toolbar
don't get me started about Adobe or Sun Java or other vender's
[So TOOL ,do you work for MS,because you praise it and knock everything else and remain myopic and in a state of self denial,when it comes to MS dysfunction.Your opinions and point of view are rude crap.Drop dead you moron.]Same to the "tool schycophants"
"Ignore the ignorant troll, folks. He'll make 1000 more posts before this is over. BetaNews needs a plonk feature for these Microsoft trolls." Well said.Z

no comment.........................

Is Windows Desktop Searching Installing Itself?

Answer: Maybe.

*IF* your company administrator uses WSUS to force updates on users and has approved it, then yes.

*IF* you installed Outlook 2007 or OneNote 2007 and enable the Fast Search features, then yes.

*IF* you run a CUSTOM Microsoft/Windows Update from the web site and select it from the OPTIONAL components list, then yes.

*IF* you have installed a previous version, and it is still installed, then yes.

God you people are ridiculously paranoid about Windows Updates lately, and for absolutely no *GOOD* reason... just your obsessive reasons.

The thing is that it's not about approving it when it comes to WSUS. WSUS can be set up not to approve just anything, but to approve some very common sense things, like updates to existing software, which makes quit a bit of sense. But, when an update (which in this case the WDS was) is set up to not just update but to actually install the application first, which wasn't there to begin with, so that it could be the updated version, well, that's rationally pretty backwards. Perhaps the mistake is to trust MS to set up their updates correctly, but it's not really about something being misconfigured.

But, when an update (which in this case the WDS was) is set up to not just update but to actually install the application first, which wasn't there to begin with,

This would *only* happen if Office 2007 was installed, *and* the admin didn't bother to read what he was approving.

Perhaps the mistake is to trust MS to set up their updates correctly, but it's not really about something being misconfigured.

Perhaps the mistake wasn't making the update flash big bold red letters for every application for which it would be treated as an update. ...but then again, if they aren't reading what they are approving anyway, I suppose it doesn't matter what font is used.

It seems like it has happened on systems where Office 2007 never existed in any form (and where WSUS was only set up to approve critical updates or updates to existing products--and, no, WDS, on its own, or as part of something else, was not on those systems at any point in time).

Obviously you're speaking before checking the faqs. Though it took Microsoft a day to even get a clue, some of us were seeing this before Thursday and we did not approve it, had not approved previous installs or updates of WDS. You're clueless.

Are you posting in your sleep? The admins didn't have a chance to approve this...

I always feel like somebody's watching me......

I think there's medication for that now... :p

This should not surprise anyone. Windows is full of backdoors that M$ can install software through. M$ can not compete in the search market so they are doing the typical M$ move..leverage their illegal desktop monopoly to instantly get their garbage software and proprietary file formats everywhere.

I am just waiting until their garbage Flash clone is a "critical" update. Best part is a week or so after that they will tout SilverPoop as being widespread and more popular than Flash.

Windows is full of backdoors that M$ can install software through.

Lie. You see, backdoors are undocumented. :)

their illegal desktop monopoly

No. It's not. Welcome to 2007.

garbage Flash clone is a "critical" update

At your crystal ball again? If at first you don't succeed, eh?

As you can see, El Dingo's Tips On Trolling (previous article) is based completely on El Dingo's very own posts. Notice how this post in particular unfailingly demonstrates El Dingo's Trolling Tip # 218 (or was it 216?): Lie, lie, and lie some more.

Keep watching this site for more excellent tips on how to avoid truth, logic, and common sense in the name of making a complete jackass out of one's self.

I'm reading your posts to figure out how to avoid that.

May i humbly suggest: Windiz Update

This is MS screwup. YOu can't blame the admins on this one.

The behavior of approving an update, then not approving it, the product should not auto-approve and install to systems that did not have it installed in the first place. That is exactly what happened here. Admins that unexpectedly got this update probably had a test system they were playing with, WSUS or a previous SUS version detected it at some point, and they forgot long ago about it. Why would the behavior then be to install WSUS ON EVERY CLIENT IN A DOMAIN?

Doesn't make sense. Once again complete miscommunication from MS about this.

BTW, this didn't impact me at all, but s*** I'd be pissed if it had.

Heh...

As GT2L said, admins should really read their approvals. ;)

If given a chance to approve it...

Times like these I'm glad I switched to GNU/Linux. It's always genuine, asks your permission before updating, and never needs to validate crap.

Good for you. How are the games working out for you?

We're so happy for you.

Really.

I'm doing my little happy dance right now.

When did you do this? Yesterday? You've posted several times that you are running Vista on at least one box. In one rare moment of lucidity, you actually posted that "Vista was ok"...

If it doesn't validate your updates, how do you know that the updates haven't been compromised?

Oh, I get it, you're venting about Activation and Windows Genuine Advantage. My bad.

Danged M$....

Here's another post from a "moron admin who deserves to be fired..."

If I have WSUS install UPDATES automatically for both M$ Office 2k3 and M$ Office 2k7, then it should only update whatever VERSION of Office is installed on the machine.

If Office 2k3 is not present on the client, the UPDATE should not INSTALL Office 2k3 on the client. Instead, it should install UPDATES to Office 2k7 (that is if Office 2k7 is installed on the client in the first place).

This is what is happening with this danged Search UPDATE. It's INSTALLING (not UPDATING) it whether or not M$ Desktop Search was present on the client in the first place.

Suffice it to say, WSUS does absolutely nothing automatically on my network any longer...

lmao..

Okay.

I get it now. You guys are equating WDS with a new app. It's not. It's an update to the existing search functionality within Windows.

Savvy?

Ultimately, I do take responsibility for this fubar on my network. I put my update/security trust in the masterminds behind WSUS updates. I won't make that mistake twice. Which is the mark of a good NetAdmin in my mind, not someone worthy of firing. That is unless I'm in the presence of "NetAdmin perfection" on this site???

Anywho, I'm sure a lot of guys, myself included, never viewed Desktop Search as a Windows upgrade, but rather nothing more than a shot at Google Desktop search (which works much, much better btw)...

It's not an existing functionality within Windows.

Windows Desktop Service IS an existing functionality within Windows Vista. It's part of the OS.

And yet we are talking about Windows Desktop Search. In the case of Windows XP, at the very least, which most corporate environments still have (rather than Vista), Windows Desktop Search is not even close to being part of regular Windows functionality.

You can say it all you want, but it doesn't make it true.

You had search functionality in Windows 95, didn't you? Now it's better. :)

Just because you apparently don't like it doesn't mean you get to ignore basic logic.

Search=search.

MAcOSX seacrh became spotlight.

Linux search became Beagle, and the KDE variant.

Windows search became WDS.

Just because they changed the name from "Indexing Service" in previous Windows 2000 and XP installs to "Windows Desktop Search" in recent updates, doesn't mean the functionality didn't exist. They just put a different User Interface on it.

The search that is part of Windows normally, at least up through Windows XP, is NOT Windows Desktop Search. Sure, Windows Desktop Search might modify and interact with what's already there, but it specifically is a separate application that isn't part of Windows normally.

The search that is part of Windows normally, at least up through Windows XP, is NOT Windows Desktop Search. Sure, Windows Desktop Search might modify and interact with what's already there, but WDS specifically is a separate application that isn't part of Windows normally.

...according to you.

Thanks.

Did you ever think that it might have been Microsoft's intention all along to add additional functionality to Windows Search?

Does this not accomplish that? XP, 2000...all indexed the drives. The only difference is that now we can access that index from the desktop.

Excellent cut and paste.

Do you have an MS memo somewhere proving this? No?

Then I repeat, saying it (over...and over...and over) doesn't make it so.

Microsoft memo? Why would I need anything to prove that a separate application called Windows Desktop Search is actually a separate application and not part of Windows normally and isn't an update to the included Windows search functionality (it certainly is something that uses that included functionality and provides more on top of it, but it doesn't make it become part of it or an update to it, it's simply a separate application that works with it).

These are simple facts, nothing more, nothing less. Simply denying them without any support or by loosely associating a separate application with included features just because one uses the other doesn't change any of that.

Additional functionality or not, WDS in it's current state is still a separate application, at least in the case of Windows up through XP, not an update to the existing/included search that is part of Windows. Whether or not it does something just on top of something existing, or something totally new or different is completely irrelevant since WDS itself, even if it's just a fancy frontend to something that already exists, is still something separate.

As far as I see it, (my personal view) this is an enhancement or extended version of something that is already there. Indexing and search already exist. This adds a lot more power and functionality.

Compare it to the limited version of defrag and the full version of Diskeeper. The version of defrag in windows is based on Diskeepers product and does its job, but Diskeeper does it so much better and has many more options. MS adding WDS to Vista reminds me of when the combined IE into the Windows Explorer and said it is an integral part.

Well, yEah. Google the article posted on PCWorld an hour an a half after your sarcastic comment here (there's so many, you'll have to guess which one I'm referring to).

Or better yet, maybe Windows Desktop Search can find the article for you! :)

Question - why are you so hot on trashing admins? I've watched you MS people trashing us for two days - what's up with that? Interesting how my WSUS settings have prevented any unwanted updates being pushed out besides this one.... but sorry, I must not know what I'm doing!

Exactly!

dumba*=dumba*

blah, blah, blah Mr "Member of the WSUS Product Team"

(2) XP systems and no WDS updates here.

Over the years I've noticed people will click Yes, Ok, Next and 'I Agree' without reading the dialog box because they think they know what its referring to.

Software isnt perfect and people make mistakes. With that in mind, incidents like this dont surprise me.

So let me get this right. Two admins out of the millions there are in the world blog that Desktop Search has been installed and it suddenly makes headline news?

I think I'd be looking more closely at their competency. Sounds like a lot of arse covering going on.

This is way more widespread.

Yeah, like maybe 3.

Or maybe (and by that I mean not maybe, but that's actually the case) at least some large corporations, and then some, have seen some effects of this as well.

Which implies what, exactly?

The fact that people get updates doesn't in any way imply everything was configured properly.

What does this have to do with the topic of this particular thread in discussion? This is about the extent of those who (not how, why, or anything else of that sort) were affected by this in some way, nothing else.

Has your bubble burst now that MS has admitted they screwed up? Kind of hurts your "trash the admin" routine, doesn't it? I thought WSUS was supposed to help administrators with MS updates, but if we have to turn everything off to prevent this from happening in the future, what's the point of using it?

Do you hate everyone, or just network admins?

There's more than two of us, and I waited for two days to blog. Googled this issue the past couple of nights to see what the impact was, but seems this time the full impact took a little while to be noticed.

Competency my arse. Think maybe the people on the WSUS team at MS should be thinking about that.

Man, WDS, of all things. At least it should have been something useful, for instance, a Kurdish-Turk Language Pack.

I just got in a brand new stnad-alone XP installed PC. The OEM did all the Windows Updates and WDS was automatically installed. MS is not telling the "full" truth!

*laughs*

You're being sarcastic, right? The OEM configured the updates (possibly even installed WDS) and it's Microsoft's fault?

Brilliant.

Gotta love that proprietary software, you can never really be sure what's going on! :D

Gotta love those clueless admins who can never tell what's going on. :)

Yeah, those darn commies.... :-)

Wow, that came form left field. You can't even be relevant anymore, can you?

If I post in any topic, you immediately *must* make an a** out of yourself. Google for a psychiatrist, I think they might be able to help you with that.

Gotta love those clueless MS employees who can never tell what's going on :)

Or better yet, let's all use Windows Desktop Search for a psychiatrist and bring our networks down!

Didn't deploy on my network. We use WSUS 3.0 and it shows up at an optional update. We automatically approve critical updates.

I can confirm this. We have a policy controlled WSUS environment. Everyone of my desktops got Desktop Search pushed to them. We did not want it or ask for it.

lol...

So it's obviously not your fault, it's Microsoft's. Of course no-one else can take responsibility.

Sorry, we have over 500 systems in our main complex, updated through one central WSUS. None of them received this update. Perhaps someone needs to review that policy of yours.

Did you deploy Office 2007 on your systems?

If so, congrats, you approved it as an Office component for Outlook and/or OneNote.

Perhaps try reading those approvals rather than just "Approve All".

Interesting that I've not approved any updates for a month, and WDS is the only thing that has installed....

spoken like a true MS employee... Is your main complex the WSUS Product Team's area?

IF a corporate environ has WSUS set to install all updates, they've effectively given MS permission to install whatever they want, even if they've disabled previous versions of WDS on existing machines. If the update is set to re-enable them, it will, as they have given the update permission to run.

For home users with automatic updates,t he same applies.

Anyone with updates set to download only, or notify before download can uncheck the wds update, click OK and click Yes when it asks the user if they want to ignore this update in the future.

If this happened to your company, don't blame MS, fire your admin.

i agree... we havent had this issue...

"fire your admin."

Shouldn't that be: get grumpy admin to remove it again.

No. If he can't configure WSUS to avoid things like this, he needs to go back to school or to start flipping burgers.

If all other work from this hypothetical admin was exemplary, you could let it go, but something like this, affecting 500+ systems?

Ouch, the stupid, it burns! Ignore the ignorant troll, folks. He'll make 54 more posts before this is over. BetaNews needs a plonk feature for these Microsoft trolls.

Hey PC - I think zridling has figured out how to use copy/paste - this is exactly what he posted (minus the "ouch, the stupid, it burns!") comment on another article.

You're getting famous!

Wow, I knew we had a few lazy babies that would cry at the drop of a hat, but this takes the cake.

Oops, did I post that out loud?

I have to agree with Skinner on this one, any admin can make a mistake. I just VPNed into my WSUS server to make sure I didn't make that mistake. Thank goodness I didn't. I have my WSUS server set up to automatically "detect" most patches and updates. The only thing I have set to automatically install are the WSUS updates themselves. (See options page)

I must have seen them yesterday when I was looking at the server, because when I looked tonight, all three versions where declined. I changed the XP version to detect just out of curiosity, but don't want them on my servers.

If anyone is curious, I am still running WSUS 2.0 as I don't have a spare 2003 server to load it on to. My only 2003 servers are DCs and I'm not ready to put it on them. I look forward to the day I can upgrade, as I have looked at it on my server 2008 test machine and it looks good.

I believe you're the GNU/Linux troll here.

The only thing I have set to automatically install are the WSUS updates themselves. (See options page)

Good admin. :)

No, he's the GNU/Linux fanboy *and* the Microsoft troll.

I believe he meant to say shill, but I could give you any number of examples (the gigabit network issue, for instance) where I have repeatedly slammed Microsoft, so he'd have been wrong on that one as well.

What can one say? He's a fan.

I didn't hear anything. :p

PC_T,
As the proprietor of an SME, non IT related (and, yes I am responsible for deployment of apps, ergo I am defacto SysAdmin).
We had an issue with Google Desktop being inadvertently installed, not only was this slowing the "intranet", it was burning the time of people who are not employed to await an indexing service. This cost me & my staff $$'s (yep, I'm a leftie, my staff are on profit share, please don't cringe!).
Now, to get back to the point, if indeed there is even the option to a SysAdmin to deploy a desktop search facility, I must be more even more stupid than this response can qualify! Seems to me it defeats the purpose of security, productivity, and so it goes.
I do not want my colleagues wasting their time & mine wondering wtf do I do with this!
Cheers mate!

I have to admin that I did have it set at one time to automatically update critical patches the did not require a reboot. Then that ANI patch came out at the beginning of the year and about 1/3 of my systems lost sound due to the realtek driver issue. Not a show stopper, but still an issue. Since then we have re-evaluated our patch policy and push them out to a "guinea pig system" in each department to see if it breaks anything and waiting and watching the forums and seeing if there is any trouble before pushing it out to all systems. And servers are manually updated. Can't have them re-booting on thier own in the middle of the night. :-)

As for my comment on changing the XP version to detect only instead of declined, I'm curious to see which systems WSUS thinks need the update (if the recent MS removal doesn't effect it). I know of two systems that have desktop search because the users installed the MSN toolbar and clicked 'yes' without reading. Not that they would have understood any way. And don't get me started about Adobe or Sun Java or other vender's installing the yahoo or Google toolbar with updates. I can't tell you how many times I've had to go uninstall them because someone has 3-4 different toolbars all with pop-up blockers that don't allow local web-based server apps.

OK, enough venting. Now for the flames because someone thinks I'm not a good admin because I can't control my users. I blame it on corporate policy, but won't get into it here.

Since then we have re-evaluated our patch policy and push them out to a "guinea pig system" in each department

Excellent idea! I'll have to bring that one up.

And don't get me started about Adobe or Sun Java or other vender's installing the yahoo or Google toolbar with updates. I can't tell you how many times I've had to go uninstall them because someone has 3-4 different toolbars all with pop-up blockers that don't allow local web-based server apps.

Ugh... We have that problem at nearly all of our sites. The only way were were able to solve it here was by going Nazi on the users. Unfortunately, our contract sites won't let us do that to their users. It sucked for a while, but it's been quiet for almost 6 months now and the users have mostly become accustomed.

I actually think this is one thing that will be helped *greatly* by Vista if done right on the admin side of things.

We had an issue with Google Desktop being inadvertently installed,

On your server???? Wow...

if indeed there is even the option to a SysAdmin to deploy a desktop search facility, I must be more even more stupid than this response can qualify!

Are you referring to WSUS here? It's there. Well, if you have Office 2007 installed, or existing / past installations and you haven't gone back and changed the approvals.

I do not want my colleagues wasting their time & mine wondering wtf do I do with this!

Look below. An excellent suggestion by a poster regarding guinea pig systems. Looking into that one right now. Depends on the size of the company, but...

Yeah, good idea - MS is doing everything they can do to push your idea - fire the admin? Again, check your facts before posting.

Whatever.

I think someone has "include optional updates" enabled on their corporate networks.

Their own dumb fault.

"even though those services are set up not to deploy updated software automatically"

Nope. It's an optional windows update is all...man, people sure are quick to complain about rumors, aren't they?

Some SUS is set to auto update optional components. I'm sure that's all it is.

New admins in the world that are in charge of your WSUS boxes. Turn off optional updates right away.... Repeat: Turn off optional updates right away...

This "update" behaved as an update, but was actually a fully fledged installation.

A setting in WSUS that was turned on because in every other case it did the right thing, with this update approved the update for installation, overriding other settings, and installing on systems that did not have it previously.

In other words: An update that wasn't just an update, but was both, and by default behaved in a scope larger than expected.

Therefore I dont really agree this was the fault of the admins (like me). The scope change causes the logic of the update behavior to become rather unexpected and inconsistent with previous update behavior.

Everybody has complicated the issue here it is very simple.

An update should update a programme that is already present on a machine.

WDS installed itself on machines that did not previously have WDS installed.

Therefore it is not an update it is a new software installation.

As such it should have been ditributed as a new peice of software.

The fact that Microsoft have apologised underlines this fact.

We run WSUS and it's set up for 100% manual approval.

And yet WDS has deployed itself to all of our XP machines which are not capable of running this service without a massive performance hit.

I've now had to manually uninstall across site.

Thanks Microsoft, you bunch of ****s