Operating System Update Message

I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this message. If it is not, please accept my apologies.

I occasionally (most recently today) get a warning from ESET Nod32 that my Operating System requires updates. The icon in the taskbar turns yellow and there is a little text box alerting me to the issue. Some, but not all, of the updates in the list are marked as "critical."

When I click on the box to install my updates, I always get a message saying that because I'm not using Internet Explorer as my web client (I'm on Firefox instead), that it cannot proceed with installing the updates and that I must go to the Windows Update Web Site and/or configure the "Automatic Updates" panel in my System Control Panel to do so.

The thing is, when I go to Control Panel > System > Automatic Updates, it is already configured to download and install recommended updates every day at 11pm. So if this is the case, I'm not sure why I'd be getting a long list of updates every now and then. It seems unlikely that so many "critical" updates would be released in a 24 hour span.

Similarly, if I go tothe Windows Update Web Site as instructed and click on the "Microsoft Update" link, I get the exact same message that I received previously... that these updates cannot be performed from other web clients or versions of IE older than version 5.

I did see that another user has posted a topic about Operating System updates, but it appeared to be a slightly different issue, hence the new thread.

Can anyone help?

Thanks.

 

If you go to this - http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ - website with IE (any other browser wont work!), you are not able to install new (critical) updates?
This is for Windows XP only, Vista and above have a build-in update program for Windows updates. But it seems your using XP. On default NOD32 only reports about missing critical updates.

Automatic updates do work but they are not always distributed as fast as doing manual check on that webpage. And Microsoft does monthly throw you a bunch of critical updates on 'Patch Tuesday' and more time crititical updates during the rest of the month.

 

I followed your link in IE and it worked --- four critical updates were installed. Thanks for the help.

That said, there were a dozen or so updates on the list that popped up on the alert from Nod32. I *think* a couple of them may have been driver updates.

Any idea as to how I can get Nod32 to reproduce this list? Or is there any way I can have my system scan for *other* updates, including drivers?

 

I dont know how to reproduce that list in NOD32, however if you go to that webpage again and choose 'custom' you get all updates available for your system. Including drivers, and additional updates.

 

I'll do it now. Thank you.