Suggestion: Update Redundancy

[Hellbovine]

Update: August 23rd, 2023 (Unresolved)

Summary: Inexperienced users are downloading all available Windows Updates through NTLite, rather than curating a proper list.

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We frequently see inexperienced users downloading Windows Updates through the NTLite tool, and this is resulting in countless users installing unnecessary updates, such as previews, superseded items, etcetera.

Can NTLite more closely mimic the real Windows Update to help avoid this problem? Maybe NTLite should put a check mark on the updates that a user would get if they manually ran Windows Update via the official operating system interface, and then uncheck all the rest in NTLite to signify that only the checked items are mandatory and the others are optional.

That is for sure where the confusion is coming from because the masses are assuming all items in the NTLite download list are necessary. In other words, the real Windows Update interface automatically filters out the update "clutter" while NTLite does not, and NTLite expects users to manually curate the proper list, even if they don't have the necessary knowledge to do so. I can understand if this was an advanced power user feature, but integrating updates is very basic and so this needs some fixing to make it more intuitive as to avoid all the constant posts on the topic.

Another option would be to add pop-up text that tells a user if they've selected a redundant update. The point is we need something extra to help prevent people from mindlessly downloading everything because that's what most people are clearly doing right now.

 

[garlin]

NTLite's updates list is compiled by nuhi. There is no machine logic behind the list, it's all the widely available updates for a given release.

You can't suggest a "correct" list of updates without having to first install Windows, because to run WU or Wsusscn2.cab you need a complete set of WinSxS folder versions. To have to pre-install Windows to get to know what to update is impractical.

There's two possible solutions which are practical:
1. Checked option to Updates download wizard, which automatically clears the cache before starting downloads.

2. NTLite to automatically remove superseded updates it finds while processing. There's relatively good logic for skipping superseded KB's, so this process can be trusted. The problem comes from cleaning up the preset, since it references now-removed KB's.

 

[Hellbovine]

Thank you for clarifying on those things, that helps me understand better. One statement confused me though, could you please elaborate on: "To have to pre-install Windows to get to know what to update is impractical."

Edit: I think I see now, you're saying users would need to install an unmodified Windows first, and then use NTLite to check for updates because a host machine with component removals may negatively affect the update manifest since removals delete WinSxS files? I've never focused on WinSxS before, so I didn't immediately see the connection.

 

[Clanger]

You can't suggest a "correct" list of updates without having to first install Windows, because to run WU or Wsusscn2.cab you need a complete set of WinSxS folder versions. To have to pre-install Windows to get to know what to update is impractical.

I have had WU(using another tool + wsusscn2.cab) suggest updates(mainly on w7 and 8.1) which when i install them it says xxx.msu is not applicable, nice one WU :/ . We only need to download 5 updates, dynamic update(for setup), SS(optional as its in the CUs now), CU, net4.8/4.81 and nets CU for w10(11?) compared to the many we had to download for w7 and 8.1, all we need to do is spend 15minutes looking at Windows X Update History pages and the Update Catalog site, thats not hard to do even for a beginner, nuhi could retire the Update Download feature and the time needed to keep the update lists updated, look at how many OS's and builds there are, his time could be better spent keeping up with MS and bug hunting. Creating a VM and installing in there then running WU either online or offline scanned with wsusscn2.cab is easy for beginners too.