Bloody Microsoft updates

Microsoft is really pissing me off these days. While necessary, their updates suck.

I’m restarting a VISTA machine about the seventeenth time already, because if I try to install all available updates, all of them fail with an undocumented error, even though I can install them one-by-one.

I’ve installed several updates on an XP laptop, and four of them failed; I tried again, then they succeeded. No apparent reason for the difference.

I’ve installed a bunch of updates on another XP machine, but a few were left out. I installed those, too (Root Certificates and Office 2007 Help updates.) Windows didn’t ask for a restart, but the browser went half-dead afterwards anyhow, so I had to restart.

Meanwhile, I’ve just restarted that VISTA machine again.

You’d think that after all these years, Microsoft would be better at this. But they aren’t. One of these days, they’re going to release a patch that will shut down three hundred million computers around the world and cause more economic damage than the current recession. Then, they’ll call it “behavior by design” and charge us more for support.

Update: I’ve narrowed down the problem to a single update, KB958624. It fails to complete installation after reboot, and upon this failure, the system reverts other updates as well. I have attempted to contact Microsoft about this using their Web based e-mail form; I dutifully completed all the requisite fields, only to be informed after I clicked the last Continue that the requested page is not available. Congratulations, Microsoft, for a professional job well done.