Laptop manufacturers have a habit of over complicating matters, especially when it comes to software. The latest discovery revealed that Samsung has a programme that disables Windows Updates and prevents Microsoft from pushing patches and updates to the machines.
Samsung ships all its laptops with its own SW Updater, a utility programme that monitors its pre-installed bloatware for updates. SW Updater also disables and blocks registry access for Windows Updates, which then forces users to update their drivers and operating system through Samsung’s own utility.
The problem was discovered by a researcher who noticed it while debugging the SW Updater. It turns out there is a file listed as Disable_Windowsupdate.exe, that is there to perform the specific task for keeping Windows from updating itself. This is an extremely unusual situation, although there is no problem with simply uninstalling the programme and re-enabling Windows updates.
According to a Samsung rep, the situation exists to prevent any Windows updates from disabling any Samsung installed bloat-ware. Or rather, the rep seems to indicate that non-Samsung updates may end up causing some of the hardware to stop working as well.
Malaysians are probably not affected too much by this news, considering that Samsung stopped selling laptops in this region last year. However, anyone who is still on a Samsung laptop might want to double check their systems to see if they haven’t missed an update or two.
[Source: bsodanalysis]
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