A tech community called Lunarsoft had a talk with a member of the Microsoft Team and found out the reason behind why AutoPatcher received the takedown notice. They also have another story about all the talk of why AutoPatcher got their takedown notice and people wanting to help.

More can be read at http://lunarsoft.net

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Other related Lunarsoft articles:

• AutoPatcher project receives takedown notice - Aug. 30
• [Exclusive] The reason behind the AutoPatcher takedown notice - Aug. 30
• More trouble for AutoPatcher and other projects? - Aug. 31
• AutoPatcher Ray of Hope? - Sept. 2

I just saw on the AutoPatcher Blog that Microsoft sent them a takedown notice requiring them to remove the download page from their website.  For those of you who don’t know what AutoPatcher is it is basically a compilation of Windows updates released since the most recent service pack.  On August 20th, 2007 they announced that they now had AutoPatcher releases for Microsoft Office XP/2003/2007 in addition to the standard Windows updates.

The nice thing about AutoPatcher was that it was a great time saver for computer technicians who work on multiple computers for clients.  It has saved me countless hours when updating computers for clients, which translates into increased savings and adds value to my services.  I still occasionally run into new clients who are still running Windows XP SP1 and even a few that don’t even have SP1 installed.  Even with all of the updates bundled into one file that you can download and burn onto a CD or DVD it still usually takes 1-2 hours to install all of the service packs and recommended updates.  That is without downloading the updates from the Internet on every single PC.  If I had to download all the updates from the Internet and the client was on dial-up it would take all night.  Even on high speed Internet it usually takes a little while to download the few hundred MBs of updates released since Windows XP SP2.  It is especially inefficient use of your time if you are onsite at a client’s office or house.

The other nice timesaving feature of AutoPatcher was the automated installer that installed all the patches one after another without prompting.  I would just select all the updates I wanted to install, click on start, and then work on something else for an hour or two and let it finish.  Microsoft Update basically does the same thing but it takes a lot longer since it needs to download the updates from the Internet before it installs them.

I must say I’m going to miss AutoPatcher and I hope Microsoft reconsiders their actions.  However, I was expecting this to happen for quite awhile and I doubt Microsoft will change it’s mind.  At least I have most of the latest AutoPatcher releases burned to a DVD and I will probably keep using them until they become obsolete.