Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Just a quick heads up for those users and system administrators who are tired of accessing the Microsoft Update Catalog in Internet Explorer or using the workaround to use other browsers: the site is now working in any modern browser.
Simply point your web browser to the main address -- http://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Home.aspx -- and the site should open just fine.
No more using Internet Explorer to download patches from the Update Catalog, or using the RSS feed workaround to download them using other browsers.
I have tested the site with Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Vivaldi, and it worked fine in all of them. Surprisingly though, it does not work in Microsoft Edge yet because there is still a script running on the page that checks for Edge and intercepts the connection.
Source: http://www.ghacks.net/2016/10/15/microsoft-update-catalog-works-with-any-browser-now/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @11:39AM
n/t
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @11:42AM
works with any browser now
does not work in Microsoft Edge
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @11:54AM
Those two statements are not contradictory, they just imply that Microsoft Edge is no browser. ;-)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @01:22PM
You missed the "modern" qualifier. I have to wonder about people who still use that term in a positive light though. To me it means constant uneeded updates, menus moving around, websites not loading because they use new feature X, ads being inserted, and various telemetry sneaking in.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:52PM
I prefer HTML5 with native video element, canvas, and SVG. Evidently you prefer Flash?
I definitely prefer JavaScript 1.8.5 to earlier versions. That update added significant missing capability, specifically Object.keys and related functions. Should've been in the language much earlier.
UTF-8 is clearly superior to ASCII unless you're using a very old or embedded computer that hasn't the memory capacity for it.
The interfaces changes are improvements. Yes, I said it. Changing the bottom bar in Firefox to a popup for showing where a link leads was huge improvement. Before that, I was using an addon to make that bar autohide, which was vastly inferior as it forced Firefox to redraw the page each time the bar changed state. Options to turn off the menu bar and bookmarks bar were most welcome, and something I used to need addons to do. I don't like wasting real estate on window decorations and the like. One addon I added was Hide Tab Bar with One Tab. Still hunting for a window manager I like better, hate having a whole line's worth of screen space wasted for a titlebar. Yeah, sure Openbox has "undecorate", but I also like being able to drag windows around by the titlebar. Much better if the titlebar could be transparent or some such.
Granted, there are bad features such as ActiveX. Adding DRM to HTML would be a negative. Hope it never happens.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday October 20 2016, @06:20AM
What? Firefox had the option to hide the tab bar when only a single tab is open since it had tabs. I know for sure since I always had that option set before I got a 16:9 screen and tree style tabs.
Otherwise I wouldn't mind if removing the status bar had been an option. It sucks to have to install an extension for it (and then, other extensions no longer make good use of it, and stuff their icons all in the URL bar where they take space away from the URL bar items (and actually use more space, as icons in that bar are much larger).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday October 20 2016, @01:06PM
Not any more. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-hide-tab-strip-when-you-only-have-one-tab [mozilla.org]
> stuff their icons all in the URL bar
Can right click those icons and "move to menu". Be nicer if the menu was the default location, but this is tolerable.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday October 20 2016, @05:42PM
Ouch. Yet another interface devolvement.
Ah, nice, didn't know that. Thank you.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @03:43PM
A female must've written that.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:02PM
To use this site to find and download updates, you need to change your security settings to allow ActiveX controls and active scripting. To get updates but allow your security settings to continue blocking potentially harmful ActiveX controls and scripting from other sites, make this site a trusted website:
In Internet Explorer, click Tools, and then click Internet Options. On the Security tab, click the Trusted Sites icon. Click Sites and then add these website addresses one at a time to the list: You can only add one address at a time and you must click Add after each one:
http://*.update.microsoft.com https://*.update.microsoft.com http://download.windowsupdate.com
Note: You might have to uncheck the Require server verification (https:) for all sites in the zone option to enter all the addresses.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @01:36PM
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday October 19 2016, @02:57PM
So yeah, you can't rely on javascript and have that work in any browser. That's bullshit on its face. The only thing that works in any browser is HTML.
You know, a webpage. The thing they're refusing to offer here.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:06PM
This has worked for years, at least in Firefox.
What hasn't worked, is the Windows update process itself. Fire up a new Windows 7 or 8.1 machine and try to update it. It will take WEEKS to find updates, if it ever does at all.
The Windows update system was re-written in summer 2016 (Microsoft acknowledging the problem), and the removal of svchost.exe in current builds as well as the all in one monthly updates will help alleviate the update problem, but if using anything other than Windows 10, you will have to use Windows Update itself (or WSUS) to ever see the new Windows Update at all.
Windows is waaaay over-engineered, and the update process is broken because of this. Recent changes to update methodology only serve to hide this fact. What's needed is hiring people like tedu@ to remove all the cruft from Windows and move the operating system forward.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:42PM
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer was said (prior to the 11th of this month) to work with Windows versions prior to Windows 10.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Nerdfest on Wednesday October 19 2016, @01:02PM
This is obviously some new definition of the word "over-engineered" I wasn't previously aware of.
(Score: 2) by Celestial on Wednesday October 19 2016, @02:54PM
Microsoft Windows' "cruft" that you want to remove is precisely one of the main reasons why it's so popular. Most applications and games that were made for Microsoft Windows back in 1999 still work today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @08:56PM
Most applications and games that were made for Microsoft Windows back in 1999 still work today
You can get that with FOSS stuff too.
Ever hear of a "fat binary"?
If you like old stuff, just keep an install of a distro of that vintage.
With FOSS, you have the source code and can compile it (using the old kernel with its old dependencies) and include all the dependencies **in** the app.
You (and/or your friends) can then run that binary under a modern distro.
You can also run the game in a virtual machine with that old distro installed there.
If you meant to impress someone with MICROS~1's awesomeness, you fell short.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @09:44PM
Ever hear of a "fat binary"?
Yep every distro runs with them right? Oh wait pretty much no one does it. Apple did it for awhile when they moved between architectures but soon dropped it.
and include all the dependencies **in** the app.
Ah so reverse dependency hell. Just copy everything into one dir and hope for the best approach. You can do that in windows too if you want. It rarely works out good in the end.
So I have a bit of software from say 2002. The company is long since gone. I should just say 'aw fuck it I am going to use the open source version of it'. OH WAIT it does not even exist.
If you meant to impress someone with your 'linux skilz' You can do better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 20 2016, @12:58AM
Just copy everything into one dir
You are a complete nitwit.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2016, @11:44PM
To get a "fat binary", you INCLUDE all the dependencies IN the executable when you COMPILE that, nitwit.
That's how the thing gets fat, dumbass.
That's also how you get version independence.
You don't make calls to the OS's on-disk stuff--not to libraries; not to e.g. the Windoze Registry.
So, putting more DLLs (or the equivalent) in a directory doesn't make the slightest different for this paradigm, idiot.
You can also get -machine- independence.
You can even put the app on a thumbdrive and carry it with you.
If you want the Windoze paradigm that parallels this, that's PortableApps--sorta.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Redundant) by VLM on Wednesday October 19 2016, @01:00PM
Hey thanks I tried that on Chrome on FreeBSD and it works great.
Now could you enlighten me with the syntax for FreeBSD's pkg config file /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos for this fine repository of executable binary FOSS? Also where are the GPG keys to authenticate this repo?
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 19 2016, @01:56PM
You beat me to it, VLM. But, even if someone tells us how to add the repository, I'm not seeing any updates for Gentoo - or BSD - or Linux - or - well, for anything other than Winders.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 19 2016, @02:43PM
I can run windows stuff on my freebsd box via wine
https://wiki.freebsd.org/Wine [freebsd.org]
although I don't do it much.
For years I've been expecting some kind of embrace extend extinguish for linux (well, there is systemd) and unixes like freebsd. I figure it would come in the form of installing MS software via the usual repo stuff or similar.
I would guess there would be some people who would run MSIE as a browser sometimes to debug compatibility issues or shell scripts with #!/usr/local/bin/powershell
As a non-MS example of why I like the ability even if I don't use it, I have an apple airport wifi access point somewhere in my disorganized home network and I can use the airport utility to configure it from my wife's mac but if I want to configure it I'm told the windows configuration program runs just fine under WINE.
At the time I bought the airport I had a powerpc mac on my desk as one of the multiple machines I always have, so it wasn't an issue. Also, maybe unbelievably, I had never heard of a modern wifi device that was configured by a binary non-foss program instead of via the web so I rather ignorantly assumed of course apple airports were configured via web interface because all wifi access points are configured via a web interface...