Samsung disabling Windows updates on some PCs...

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Samsung the king maker of Android, has been finally caught putting a program on many of their PCs called Disable_Windowsupdate.exe which runs at boot up.

Samsung claims Microsoft's Windows updates ended up breaking drivers rendering many hardware parts useless.
Instead you have to update using Samsung's modified Windows updates.

Microsoft denies Samsung's claims.

http://arstechnica.com/information-tech ... -computers

I really don't like the idea of having updates handled by the device manufacturer. I much prefer OS updates coming directly from the makers of said OS. While the above is referring to Windows on PCs, I've noticed this is the biggest problem in the Android world at the moment as well. Only a few select devices (e.g. Nexus) get updates directly from Google and as such, a lot of Android devices from various manufacturers simply aren't getting security updates at all, or very seldom at best. The last Android device I owned was from LG, and they stopped releasing updates shortly after buying the phone. I kept seeing vulnerabilities in the news, but checking for updates yielded "no new updates." This is really unacceptable, and if Google wants to see Android succeed as a secure mobile OS, they really need to handle updates themselves, but that would require the manufacturers to stop customizing Android with all the crap they do.

That's just stupid. I can understand Samsung wanting to ensure that updates come from their servers rather than direct from Microsoft. But all they have to do is deploy a GPO in their Windows image that points Windows Updates to Samsung's own WSUS servers.

I can't. There are things in Windows updates that would have nothing to do with their hardware and are specifically aimed at updating/changing/whatever Microsoft software on your computer. They'll mess with the operating system and things related to it and will THEMSELVES wreck your use of your machine.

Well I guess I am glad I have a sony rather than a samsung than....at least for now maybe it is only a matter of time before they are caught doing something like that, who knows.

Right. That's exactly why you use WSUS - to ensure that only the updates that you've tested and know to be stable get deployed to your devices.

WSUS, or Windows Server Update Services, is what you use to run your own Windows Update server. It uses the exact same updates as come directly from Microsoft. The only difference is that the WSUS server administrator selects which updates get pushed and which don't. So for example you can prevent a system-breaking driver update from being deployed, while letting the Microsoft software updates through. It's actually pretty common.

If this works on Windows 10, maybe someone will reverse-engineer it so we can FINALLY have a way of controlling which updates are installed and which ones aren't. In an ideal world, I'd be able to choose to only install security updates, and leave everything else as is. I've seen updates break things, slow computers down, and introduce useless "features" that just serve as an annoyance.

Anyway, this also sort of makes me glad I'm running Cyanogenmod on my phone instead of the stock firmware. I mean, I have a Galaxy S3 that not only runs Lollipop, but it also has protection from the StageFright vulnerability, and I don't have to use Samsung's annoying software with it! It runs very nicely as well, which is somewhat surprising for such an old phone.