What? WindowsUpdate doesn’t work with a non-activated Windows XP?

And I only just realised it now. *
Now I’m not going to complain about Microsoft. If you have a valid license key, you should activate it.

But I don’t want to activate Windows as I’m just doing some tests, part of the Undelete series of posts. And before someone says “Dude, you should activate it.”. Well, in future, I don’t want to go though the re-activation hell process, with some worker based offshore.

But Microsoft does offer a work-around, Automatic Updates, but I just don’t care for it.

Perhaps the fact that AU has rebooted my PC in a middle of a 4GB download has soured my experience.

So what to do instead? Not patch? No, you have to patch, it’s the prudent thing to do.

No, instead, I grabbed a copy of AutoPatcher. I wrote about AutoPatcher here. To recap, I like it because it works, and it’s free. And 66 updates later, Windows XP will be a little bit more secure.

* most of the Windows XP installs I work with have a Corporate license which is already activated. (a VLK. In Microsoft Vista/Windows 7 licensing speak, it’s a MAK type key)

What? WindowsUpdate doesn’t work with a non-activated Windows XP?

Related posts: