Suggestion for Patching Windows Dial-Up Users
Larry Seltzer makes a great recommendation for Microsoft to assist its Windows dial-up users:
"One way to make things easier for dial-up users, and even broadband users in many cases, would be to issue periodic update CDs. Imagine a disc with all of the updates on it and a program, it could even be written in Windows Script Host, to check a system for which updates need to be installed, apply them in the correct order and even reboot in between. Such a program would not be hard to write.
Microsoft could charge a trivial amount for the discs but it would be better just to give them away and encourage users to pass the discs around when they were done. At that point you'd still need to check Windows Update for recent additions, but it's unlikely you'd have an unbearably long download time...
I recently put this suggestion to Microsoft and their response basically avoided the whole issue. Why wouldn't the company want to offer such a CD, assuming that's the motivation behind their stonewalling?"
"One way to make things easier for dial-up users, and even broadband users in many cases, would be to issue periodic update CDs. Imagine a disc with all of the updates on it and a program, it could even be written in Windows Script Host, to check a system for which updates need to be installed, apply them in the correct order and even reboot in between. Such a program would not be hard to write.
Microsoft could charge a trivial amount for the discs but it would be better just to give them away and encourage users to pass the discs around when they were done. At that point you'd still need to check Windows Update for recent additions, but it's unlikely you'd have an unbearably long download time...
I recently put this suggestion to Microsoft and their response basically avoided the whole issue. Why wouldn't the company want to offer such a CD, assuming that's the motivation behind their stonewalling?"