Tuesday 21 July 2009

Windows Updates

Now here's a topic and a half. My personal opinion may not be the mainstream but I believe keeping your Windows operating system up to date as important as having up to date Anti-Virus software.

There's a downside however with the latest sets of updates from Microsoft, Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista is BIG and when I say big I mean HUGE this latest service pack, which has some performance improvements as well as bug fixes, is almost 350MB in size.For all of us that know friends in the countryside (or even the outskirts of a main town) this is going to cause some problems.SME-UK Limited's business covers clients in places such as Cookham Dean, Holyport and Shurlock Row, all popular places in the Berkshire area, which all struggle to get broadband speeds over 1MBs (some places in Shurlock Row there is no broadband available), what are these businesses to do ?Well, SME-UK Limited offers these service packs via CD or DVD-ROM along with other large updates too (Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 weighs in at 290MB) to all its Support Subscription clients.
There is a small bright spark on the horizon though, BT at a recent business presentation tell me that the speeds will be getting better with improved and updated telephone exchanges and the arrival ADSL2+ (newer faster ADSL Broadband) but hey I'm sure we can count on Microsoft to find bigger and "better" Service Packs to rollout when Windows 7 hits the streets later this year. Not that I'm a cynic of course but with a new version of software there are bound to be some major fixes hard on the heels of the launch.

I hope I'm wrong in a way and that new operating systems and new application suites are better and more stable, but ask most people about Windows Vista coupled with Office 2007 versus Windows XP with Office 2003 and I think you'll not be surprised by the feedback, lets at least hope they are smaller, more manageable patches and service packs.