Try, try again

I hate software that's tries to pull one over on me. Microsoft Update (aka Windows Update) just did that to me. I prefer to choose which updates get installed because I don't like having to restart my computer when I don't want to.

Microsoft thinks that installing Internet Explorer 8 is "important." I don't think it is. I usually use  Chrome or . When I do have to use IE, I'd rather use the version I'm more familiar with. And I'd rather wait until it's clearly better and more stable than IE7.

So today I selected the updates I wanted and unchecked IE8 again. The updates failed because my network connection flaked out. I fixed that and clicked the convenient "Try Again" button. Hmm. Why is there one more update being downloaded? Answer: because Microsoft decided to throw IE8 back into the set of updates to install.

Thanks, but no thanks. While some would see this as a deliberate attempt to trick me into installing IE8, I know that one should never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.

In other words, Microsoft, try again.

P.S. While I wrote this I was surprised to discover that http://www.microsoftupdate.com linked to http://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft%20update&form=MSSRPD. Guess that's one way to pump up the stats. But wouldn't it have been better to link to the right place: http://update.microsoft.com/?