Microsoft kills Autopatcher
 

Seems MS has decided to act like the uncaring behemoth we love to hate and has shut down Autopatcher. Have a read of this on Autopatcher and also [url=http://www.neowin.net/]this]/url] on Neowin.

This is a real shame as I've used Autopatcher for a few years now to update various machines to the latest fixes from MS. Slipstreaming isn't really of use when you have a fully built machine and just want the updates and don't want a complete reinstall.

The cynic in me has this funny feeling that MS is going to release/update something they have that will offer this facility, for a fee of course.

I've not seen AutoPatcher before but having a brief read of the description on their site, it would seem that it could be a pretty good way to get around WGA authentication when installing updates - I think that's a more likely reason.

That is true, however MS flatly denies that WGA is the reason behind the shutdown.

We certainly wouldn't want anyone else redistributing our service packs either to be honest, which I guess they were doing. You have no control over whats been tinkered with.