Tonight, the updates for May 2007 showed up in Windows Update. You can read about this month’s updates here. My experience receiving updates this evening really impressed me and I felt it was important to highlight that here. I absolutely love how they improved Windows Update with Windows Vista. The Windows Update client, which is built in to Windows Vista, allows you to view all available updates real easily. By right-clicking on any of the available updates, you can view details regarding that specific update. You can also view your history of installed updates as well.
If you’ve enabled the use of Microsoft Update – you will also see updates for other Microsoft products using the Microsoft Update Engine. You will see updates for Windows Vista and Microsoft Office grouped into seperate groups. In the case of this evening, I had several updates for Office 2007 including an update for the Outlook 2007 Junk Mail Filter. Some of the Windows Live desktop apps are also designed to take advantage of Microsoft Update too.
You can see if you are using Microsoft Update or not in Windows Update by checking where you receive updates at the bottom of the Windows Update window.
If you are not using Microsoft Update, it will say “Get updates for more products” which you can click to install Microsoft Update.
Windows Update is also great at delivering updated device drivers. A few nights ago I was alerted of a new wireless network adapter driver for my laptop. And this evening I got an update for the Xbox 360 Wireless Receiver (which I will talk about in a later post).
If you have Windows Vista Ultimate you’ll notice that Windows Update is used for downloading Ultimate Extras such as Windows DreamScene.
Overall, you’ll find being able to keep your PC up-to-date is real easy with the Windows Update client in Windows Vista.
NOTE: These experiences are based on having automatic updating configured in the Windows Update client on Windows Vista.