Oh, Microsoft, you idiots.

[theweaselking]

Microsoft has broken, sometime very recently, the functionality to upgrade from Windows Update to Microsoft Update, at least on Win7 machines.

What happens when you click "find out more" to tell it "also show me other things" - eg, hardware drivers, Silverlight, Microsoft Security Essentials, their unbelievably bad Bing Desktop, etc is that it takes you to a static page that says "use your Start menu to check for updates", with no option to switch to Microsoft Update. The source of the page shows that this WAS the page with the "install MS Update now" button at one point, but someone's gone through and removed the actually useful stuff.

Well done, Microsoft. You get a golf clap.

Comments

[nsanity-au.livejournal.com]

I believe the windows update client now does this - as it does in 8, 2008R2, etc.

[jsbowden.livejournal.com]

Actually, stop the WindowsUpdate service, remove the c:\windows\SoftwareDistribution directory, and rerun Windows Update. The problem isn't the web site, it's your machine.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Four separate machines (3 desktop 1 laptop), all with the exact same problem, all starting at the exact same time, including two fresh installs?

That doesn't seem like a per-machine problem.

(I mean, sure, why not, I'll try it. But.)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Nope. Or, at least, not in any of the machines I'm having this problem on, and it's happening on multiple machines.

[le-trombone.livejournal.com]

Wait. The update that updates updates isn't updating?

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

Did it work?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Haven't tried it yet. That was 10pm last night, I'm not at work yet.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

No. The functionality to change from "update Windows only" to "update Windows *and* other MS Products, and also MS-certified hardware drivers" is broken.

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

Well did it work now?

Are we there yet, dad?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I am totally not caring about this until tomorrow. Today is fired.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Nope. Their website, which is where the "get updates for other microsoft products" link takes you, is still broken because it still tells you to run Windows Update from your start menu instead of letting you install Microsoft Update from the website that installs Microsoft Update.

It's not me, it's them. Try it yourself .

(Maybe it's regional?)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Tried it. No good. Broken website is still broken.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

New data point! It works in IE *10*, but not *11*. Uninstalling 11 on my problem machine now.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

AH-HAHAHAHAHAHA! It's IE 11. update.microsoft.com is *broken completely* if you use IE 11. Rolling back to IE 10 allows you to use the site-that-installs-MS-Update to install MS Update.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

It's IE 11. update.microsoft.com is *broken completely* if you use IE 11. Rolling back to IE 10 allows you to use the site-that-installs-MS-Update to install MS Update.

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

Thank you! If I run into this myself, now I know how to fix it.