New 'Windows Update'...

[dave1006]

quote:Windows Update v4 Available for Windows 2000 SP2


Time: 05:54 EST/10:54 GMT | News Source: E-Mail | Posted By: Julien Jay

Windows 2000 Service Pack 2 users can now access the brand new and convenient Windows Update version 4 website after they download
an update on the actual Windows Update website. Windows Automatic Updating feature notifies you when critical updates are available
for your computer. This feature replaces Critical Update Notification if it is already installed. Critical Update Notification will
no longer offer critical updates.

http://www.activewin.com/awin/default.asp
 

It looks and runs much better for me at least...

-------------------------
|David Gallagher        
|dave at smokeajay.co.uk
-------------------------

[pooms]

It doesn't work for me with W2K Server SP2. I keep getting
an error 0x80072F76. I get this even with Proxomitron in
bypass mode, but if I take out the proxy settings in IE6
and go direct to windows update it works. I haven't figured
out why putting Proxomitron in the middle, even in bypass
mode, would cause this.

 

[Jor]

Windowsupdate v4 never worked for me with the Proxomitron, even in bypass mode, but it *does* work with the 4.2.2 bèta version

Just add this to your bypass file:

# Entries to allow Windows Update to do it's stuff
[^/]++windowsupdate.microsoft.com/
[^/]++download.windowsupdate.com/
office.microsoft.com/productupdates*

The last line is only if you also use MS Office.

 

[pooms]

When I looked at the Message Log I saw there was one other
machine involved during the windows update, one called
wustat.windows.com I thought maybe I had to add that to
the bypass list, but no.

Actually wustat.windows.com might be a candidate for the kill
list. The URL sent to it from my machine looks like this:
GET /wutrack.bin?U=add54a1f5e121046a25c90a70f171ac6&C=IU_SITE&A=n&I=&D=&P=5.0.893.2.0.3.0&L=en-US&S=f&E=80072f76&M=&X=020607192252883 HTTP/1.0

and it returns a single byte, which makes me suspicious. Although the
error code I got is embedded in it, so maybe it is just reporting the error.

 

[hpguru]

I added wustat.windows.com to my hosts file without ill effect.

 

[dave1006]

Using win2000 pro edition i get no problems whatsoever - i only have:
[^/]++windowsupdate.microsoft.com/
[^/]++download.windowsupdate.com/
in my bypass lists, and im not even sure if these servers are applicable for the new system...  So not much help, sorry.

(This applies using both 4.2 and 4.2.2beta)

-------------------------
|David Gallagher        
|dave at smokeajay.co.uk
-------------------------

[hpguru]

I haven't tried it with 4.2.2. I stopped using it as I was only seeing bugs that had already been reported by myself or others.

 

[pooms]

I found how to make Windows Update work for me with Proxomitron 4.2.
I ended up using the Network Monitor to capture TCP/IP packets and I
compared what happened when I went direct to the windows update site
and when I went through Proxomitron with Proxomitron in bypass mode.
What I found was that this HTTP HEAD command:

HEAD /v4/iuident.cab?0206080135 HTTP/1.0

contained a Pragma: no-cache header when sent by Proxomitron, but
when sent direct from IE6.0 it had a Cache-Control: no-cache
header instead.

So I took Proxomitron out of bypass mode, turned on the
"Pragma: Don't force reloads (out) filter" (which removes the
Pragma: no-cache header) and that fixed it.

In fact, (this just dawned on me) with this change, I now seem to
have Proxomitron working on the Windows Update site WITHOUT
putting the site in the bypass list!!!


 

[sidki3003]

Hey, that did the trick
BTW, if you are a member of Yahoo! Groups proxlist,
the people there would be glad to hear that as well.

TA, sidki

Edited by - sidki3003 on 08 Jun 2002  06:14:19

[sidki3003]

pooms, if you use a filter like this one (i think it's from Mona),
you will bypass the web filters, but the header filters are still active.

In = FALSE
Out = TRUE
Key = "URL: Bypass selected (Out)"
URL = "$LST(Bypass)"
Replace = "$FILTER(False)"

OT: the [code] tag doesn't seem to work.

Edited by - sidki3003 on 08 Jun 2002  04:49:42

[pooms]

Thanks for the $FILTER tip, I hadn't noticed that one before.
Maybe you did the same thing I did: I tried to access Windows
Update with all my normal filters on and found something was
causing an error on the page.

Here's my current conclusions about accessing Windows Update
with Windows 2000 through Proxomitron.

You don't need to put Windows update in your bypass list if:

• 
  you make sure you don't send a Pragma: no-cache header to
  http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/v4/iuident.cab
• 
  
• 
  you make sure you send a User-Agent value that microsoft likes  
• 
  you don't enable the "Hide Browser's Identity from JS" filter

And it appears that you can safely put the site wustat.windows.com
in your kill file without affecting Windows Update. The parameters
of the URL sent to this site look suspiciously like they are being
used to track user information.

I'll post this over on the proxlist group, although I'm a member, there
are too many messages to read there so I rarely do.

 

[sidki3003]

quote:
... you make sure you don't send a Pragma: no-cache header to
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/v4/iuident.cab

Same here, though i would recommend [^/]++windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ e.g. for future changes

quote:
you make sure you send a User-Agent value that microsoft likes

"Opera/6.03 (Linux 2.4.34 i886) [en]" works here as well. But for playing safe you are right

quote:
you don't enable the "Hide Browser's Identity from JS" filter

Other web filters interfere as well, above posted bypass filter will do it.

quote:
And it appears that you can safely put the site wustat.windows.com
in your kill file without affecting Windows Update.

Same here.



Edited by - sidki3003 on 08 Jun 2002  06:45:23

[pooms]

Incidently, if you want to see the XML SOAP messages that are
being POSTed to windowsupdate containing information about
your computer, turn on "View Posted Data" in
the HTTP Message Log. Too bad Proxomitron can't apply filters
to outgoing request contents, or we could write filters to
manage what we want microsoft to see (why do they need to
know how much free disk space I have on each of my drives???)


 

[hpguru]

quote:
...(why do they need to know how much free disk space I have on each of my drives???)

That doesn't sound good. I keep wondering when the privacy watchdogs are going to start howling.

 

[dave1006]

quote:

quote:
...(why do they need to know how much free disk space I have on each of my drives???)

quote:
That doesn't sound good. I keep wondering when the privacy watchdogs are going to start howling.

I think the answer may be 'to check that you have room to install updates'.

I personally think that MS could easily (far, far too easily) record all kinds of user data and use it without peoples knowledge - but if they were going to, they'd do it in some very hidden way that is embedded within the OS. A simple HTTP call is a little too obvious.... Or maybe thats what they want us to think... ;-)

-------------------------
|David Gallagher        
|dave at smokeajay.co.uk
-------------------------