More gnashing of teeth after Microsoft update brings PCs to a standstill
Resource-hogging search app sprung on reluctant admins — Something seems to have gone horribly wrong in an untold number of IT departments on Wednesday after Microsoft installed a resource-hogging search application …
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the third strike in a 2007 pattern of Microsoft pushing software onto machines without asking: July's update that sent PCs 'haywire' drew the first wave of complaints, and September brought eWEEK's 'What the Hell Is Microsoft Doing with My Computer?' critique. Now a resource-heavy search application has landed via update channels on an untold number of corporate PCs, dragging them to a standstill and leaving administrators who never opted in to clean up the mess.
The timing compounds the friction: Microsoft reported $13.76B in quarterly revenue the same week — its fastest first-quarter growth since 1999 — and closed its $240M Facebook investment, so the company is riding high commercially while its update pipeline becomes the most distrusted piece of software in the enterprise.
First-order effects
- IT departments running Microsoft's update infrastructure get an unrequested, CPU- and memory-hungry search app installed across fleets they administer, forcing emergency triage on workstations slowed to a crawl.
- Administrators who had treated Windows Update as a trusted, scoped patch channel now have to audit and unwind changes Microsoft made unilaterally on their managed machines.
Second-order effects
- Enterprises weighing whether to keep automatic updates enabled face a new trade-off — skipping security patches versus risking another surprise application install — which puts pressure on Microsoft to offer finer-grained update controls.
- Every recurrence of this pattern hands ammunition to rivals selling desktop-search alternatives and to critics arguing the OS vendor uses its update monopoly to distribute its own products.
Third-order effects
- If Microsoft keeps treating the update pipe as a distribution channel for first-party applications, expect enterprise buyers to demand contractual or regulatory separation between security patching and product delivery — a governance question over who controls the PC that recurs each time the company pulls this.
- The accumulating 2007 backlash risks normalizing a defensive posture among system administrators: update servers locked down, deployments staged and tested, and blanket trust in vendor-pushed installs permanently withdrawn.
The trend: Through 2007, Microsoft is converting Windows Update from a patch mechanism into a product-distribution channel, repeatedly colliding with the administrators who own the machines.