Hi,
Every second Tuesday of the month, Microsoft makes a batch of updates available for all their products. If your computer is set up properly, these updates will trickle down to over the course of a week. You will be notified that they’re either available to download, downloaded and ready to install, or downloaded and installed automatically. You will be asked to restart your computer, and there may be more updates after the restart.
If you haven’t been notified of updates, it could be that your computer is not set up to receive automatic updates. This is a serious problem, as many of the updates are to patch security vulnerabilities (solve security problems), which should help protect you against viruses, trojans, and hackers. If you want help to make sure you’re getting updates, please contact me.
I’ve been busy over the last couple of days doing three Windows Reinstalls. By far the most time consuming part is bringing Windows up to date afterwards; Windows Vista takes a day to update, and all versions of Windows need multiple reboots during the update process. While I’ve been doing these reinstalls, my own PCs have been getting automatic updates too. I’ve probably done close to 100 restarts this week!
Beware though, sometimes you could get pop-ups saying you need to update something, especially video players, which are actually viruses trying to infect your computer. It’s pretty hard to tell the difference, so if you want to check with me before saying ‘yes’, then please do. Sometimes, if you click ‘no’, that can still infect you with a virus.
If you’re a CBits subscriber (ie paying monthly for my services), you can ask me to log into your computer (if you give me the password) and check any messages to make sure they’re genuine. 10 minutes of care can prevent hours of work sorting out a fake update virus. If you’re not a subscriber, please ask for details of becoming one; it’s pretty cheap, great value for money, and could save you a lot of hassle and expense.
Colin.
CBits Tech Support 