Yup, I get annoyed by the Windows Update popup reminders as well. Still – updating is important and at the end of the day I am quite happy that there actually are updates to patch vulnerabilities and fix issues.  Which is why it is so shocking to find out that this time it’s not actual malware that is trying to disable it but a well know company: Samsung.

Microsoft MVP Patrick Barker discovered the issue when assisting a user with a Windows Update issue.  According to him “it was figured out eventually after using auditpol.exe and registry security auditing (shown below later) that the program that was responsible for disabling Windows Update was Disable_Windowsupdate.exe, which is part of Samsung’s SW Update software.”

Luckily the Samsung SW Update tool does not come with PCs by default: Users have to download it from Samsung’s website and install it. But let’s be honest: If you buy a new laptop you often download available tools in order to keep the system up to date as easy as possible. According to VentureBeat doing so is a common practice since there were people complaining about having an update problem before.

Now, Baker even got in touch with Samsung, whose support team had to say the following: “When you enable Windows updates, it will install the Default Drivers for all the hardware no laptop which may or may not work. For example if there is USB 3.0 on laptop, the ports may not work with the installation of updates. So to prevent this, SW Update tool will prevent the Windows updates.”

Well. Disabling the Windows Update does seem a very crass solution when it comes to making sure your updates and drivers will not break with new Windows updates …

The post Samsung’s SW Update Says “NO” To Windows Update appeared first on Avira Blog.