Microsoft sics lawyers on popular AutoPatcher utility

On the same day that Microsoft set a date for the delivery of new Vista and XP service packs, it shut down a popular utility built and maintained by Windows enthusiasts for easily installing updates offline.

The AutoPatcher utility is described by project manager Antonis Kaladis as an offline Windows Update. It provides an interface to a large collection of updates, common applications and registry tweaks. The collection could be downloaded once, then used to update many computers, saving time and bandwidth. The collection was updated monthly.

Microsoft, however, told Kaladis that it fears his utility potentially could distribute malicious software along with legitimate Microsoft updates. Microsoft says it wants to limit the distribution of updates and other fixes to its own sites, such as Windows Update.

AutoPatcher was launched as a hobby in 2003 by Kaladis, who says on his Web site, “[I] once spoke to a Microsoft employee, and apparently they know about us but don’t care what we do! The AutoPatcher project has been going strong since 2003 and never had a sniff of trouble from Microsoft.”

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Microsoft Closes Popular Third-Party Windows Update App

Microsoft forced a popular alternative to Windows Update off the Internet today, sending the maker of AutoPatcher cease-and-desist e-mail. The free utility has been removed from its download site.

Microsoft did not give a reason for the move, which came more than four years after AutoPatcher debuted.

“Today we received an e-mail from Microsoft, requesting the immediate take-down of the download page, which of course means that AutoPatcher is probably history,” said Antonis Kaladis, the 20-year-old Greek college student and author of the program. “As much as we disagree, we can do very little, and although the download page is merely a collection of mirrors, we took the download page down.”

AutoPatcher, which was in version 5.6, let users collect Windows hotfixes and security patches from Microsoft’s update services, then package them so they could be applied to multiple machines, or reused multiple times on a single PC. It was especially popular among people who frequently reformatted drives or those who did informal tech support for friends and family, or in a small business.

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Apple faces new class-action suit over locked iPhones

Apple Inc. is facing yet another class-action lawsuit over its iPhone, this time from a New York State resident who claims the company failed to adequately disclose to consumers that the handset is locked to AT&T’s network and that using the device internationally would result in substantial data roaming charges.

Herbert H. Kliegerman’s 9-page complaint, filed Monday in a New York Supreme Court, accuses Apple of engaging in deceptive and misleading practices by failing to properly disclose to iPhone buyers that their phones would be locked to only work with AT&T SIM cards and that the unlock codes would not be provided.

Approximately two weeks after purchasing his iPhone, Kliegerman traveled to Mexico for a week where he continued to use his iPhone to check emails and surf the web. He did so, according to the suit, after reading a statement on Apple’s iPhone website stating that “[y]ou can browse the Internet and send emails as often as you like without being charged extra.”

Microsoft’s legal costs fall

Legal payouts of $511 million in one year would be enough to sink many companies. But for Microsoft, it amounts to a small victory.

That’s what the Redmond company paid in legal settlements and related expenses in its fiscal year 2007, ended June 30. It was Microsoft’s lowest total in years — down from about $2.3 billion in payouts two years earlier.

But with cases still pending, most notably in Europe, it’s not clear if the trend will continue.

The $511 million total for the year included payments in antitrust and unfair-competition class actions, intellectual property claims and a payment to extend a patent agreement with Sun Microsystems, Microsoft said in an Aug. 3 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Microsoft’s legal costs fall

Legal payouts of $511 million in one year would be enough to sink many companies. But for Microsoft, it amounts to a small victory.

That’s what the Redmond company paid in legal settlements and related expenses in its fiscal year 2007, ended June 30. It was Microsoft’s lowest total in years — down from about $2.3 billion in payouts two years earlier.

But with cases still pending, most notably in Europe, it’s not clear if the trend will continue.

The $511 million total for the year included payments in antitrust and unfair-competition class actions, intellectual property claims and a payment to extend a patent agreement with Sun Microsystems, Microsoft said in an Aug. 3 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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