Automatic Updates

Automatic updates for operating systems are very problematic. Modern operating systems and drivers are really buggy. For business applications, unreliability due to automatic OS updates can cripple entire company. ERP, for example, may not work in new OS releases, and there are IT stories that complain how painful restoring a host of computers is. Usually, IT should test updates against business operations and distribute updates afterwards. But few OS vendors support flexible update mechanisms. Thus, computers are often left vulnerable without security updates or unreliable with unscrupulous automatic updates.

Consider how to disable automatic updates in Windows. It's clear that the troublesome steps indicate Microsoft's intention to force automatic updates upon most people. Apple is nicer, but updates are usually a permanent act without reversal. If new releases are buggy, one is stuck with it until bug fixes. To be fair, building large software is hard. But it seems there are better ways than forcing unreliable automatic updates upon customers.

At present, the best way to secure data is to store them in isolated computers with consistent backup and highly restricted IO. However, ERP doesn't work this way and OS vendors are making the life of IT really hard. Precious data stored in unreliable computers, look, who tells you to work in IT?