Downloads automatically when set to Notify (XP Home Edition)

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Brand new Dell laptop, everything kosher, Automatic Updates set to Notify (I’m not stupid). Come back to the machine to find that it’s automatically downloaded updates?!?!? Check the setting — yep, Notify. Oh well, install them since they’re downloaded.

Five minutes later, get notified of some more updates. But this time they’re only notified, not downloaded.

Any ideas?

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I’ve never seen this happen, but since the updates weren’t installed automatically, I wouldn’t worry.

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I would, Hans. It just took me over my monthly megabyte limit. And what happens when Microsoft decides to automatically download 100MB of Service Pack #953 without telling me?

Has anyone got any ideas how this could happen?

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It just took me over my monthly megabyte limit

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[/indent]I’m not trying to be a wise guy here, but perhaps you should consider increasing your monthly allotment. With all the programs today that require updating and the size of some of those updates it doesn’t take long to get up to 100 Mb in updates.

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Why on earth would I want to pay extra money for a facility I don’t need when I have this wonderful alternative — Set Automatic Updates to Notify.

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Have a nice day.

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What were the updates that were downloaded? Several other applications that can automatically download updates are supplied with many Dell machines.

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks, Jo. They were the usual bunch of Windows security updates, etc. Definitely Microsoft, and in the usual Automatic Updates screen.

Curious eh. The only thing I can think of is that some of Dell’s “helpful” software is managing things for me. I’ve checked their QuickSet utility, but it doesn’t seem to deal with this.

Maybe I’ll never know. Hopefully it won’t happen again.

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Was “set to notify” set or did you change the setting? What was the setting? If you changed it, Automatic Updates may have already started an update check and download before you were able to change it.

Joe

--Joe

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Good thought, Joe, but no, I checked that it was already set to Notify.

The more I think about it, the more I think that Dell must have something interfering with Automatic Updates, and Dell problems are outside this forum’s scope. Anyway, I’ve obviously upset one of the posters, so maybe we’d better let it drop. I’ll try a Dell bulletin board. Thanks for your help.

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So, you did not modify the AU settings as part of the initial boot/setup process? Were you given the opportunity to “check for updates” at any point in the initial setup?

Joe

--Joe

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I’m not sure what you mean. When I first got the laptop, it went through a setup process and ended up with AU set to Automatic. But I changed that to Notify immediately (a few weeks ago), and it’s been operating as designed during that time. In fact, the AU icon in the tray has been telling me for several days that I have updates ready to download ……

(Oooops. Just had a thought. It would just take a single accidental click on that icon to start the process ….. No, the next thing would be the screen that tells you you can keep working while the files are downloading, and that definitely didn’t happen.)

So, AU is definitely set to Notify, somehow the downloads start, and after they’ve finished I check and confirm that, yes, AU is still set to Notify.

Look, let’s forget about all this. I’m sitting looking at the AU icon, right now, and it’s telling me there’s some more updates to download, so obviously AU is set to Notify AND WORKING. I can believe that some technical process changed the setting, but not that it set it back afterwards. I must have changed it somehow. So I’m stupid. Well, I knew that before we started.

I’ll monitor it, and worry about it if it happens again.

Thanks for your help everyone.

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Just add a bit to this FWIW. I’ve set my Auto updates to notify and get the little shield thing to download if I want. but where as in the past the screen popped up to say you can keep working while files are downloading this no longer happens. But when I shut down then the message says please wait while updates are installed and it all seems to happen then i.e. updates have been downloaded and stored somewhere and then installed when I shut down the machine.

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