Yes.
 
You have to turn down your 'security' settings under IE, and go to their web site. Go under 'Downloads'.
 
Select your operating system, and then sort by name (date doesn't work for me. It pulls up a blank list.) It's helpful to run the 'update' deal first, and write down all the q********* references first. That way you get the updates for XP, IE, Virtual Machine, UPnP, and everything else that may or may not really have anything to do with the operating system. You can just type in the q* references, or at least match them up in the menu.
 
Save them to disk. But to warn you ahead of time, don't try just running all the hotfixes at the same time. You have to reboot in between each one, or run qchain along with the /z option on the hotfixes.

...and that is why MS don't make these 'Critical Updates' freely downloadable because they know some fool will just install them all one after the other and totally mess up their installation.
 
You really do have the wrong idea about MS.
Whatever your opinions on product activation, MS don't usually go out of their way to make life difficult for people, to retain the market share they have to make life easy for users.
Windows Update provides a safe way to install all updates you need, downloading them, saving them and running them in the future could cause you problems.
They will all be included in SP1 which is designed to be downloaded and installed as one big package.

yeah right, and untill then im repedetly gonna download 50mb's(or whatever) worth of fixes!!!(like first thing that crossed my mind was to install them alltogether with no reboot, what a mess. Im sure that's why MS did this webinstall, once again yeah right(i like XP but this "webupdate" sucks).

The Microsoft Java Machine is a bit different. Altough intended to be part of Windows XP, it was not included because of litigation with Sun and once downloaded and installed it cannot be removed. Get this 5 Mb file from Microsoft Downloads:
 
msjavx86.exe

What i really need is cd burners fix

Also, since you won't know for certain if a new fix replaces an older one (or one is no longer needed, like the P3 patch that was up initially and then removed), it will also "chain" the fixes for you so you only have to reboot once. While I am not a fan of having to download a ton of fixes either since I adminster a few networks, it is still nice to have a customized patching process that will only give the machine what it needs and still allows you to select what you do and do not install.
 
As for the Java plugin, you can get the one from MS or get the one from Sun that is more compliant with universal Java apps/applets. I had to get it for my Compaq Remote Insight board in my new server, and it works rather well.
 
http://java.sun.com/getjava/download.html

You know, it would be a nice feature if you could set up your server to be a local Windows Update server for your network. Like this server would automatically (or manually) download the updates for all the OS's as they came out, and then you could just hit this local server when you do an install. They could make it so it functioned exactly the same a MS's update server, only you access over the LAN!

"like first thing that crossed my mind was to install them alltogether with no reboot, what a mess"
 
Then well done, but you knowing not to install all of the patches in one go doesn't mean that everybody would know.
MS could post warnings until they were blue in the face telling people the correct method, however people would still do it wrong, they would still destroy their installation, they would still call support have a shout and then spend hours on line trying to get the problem solved.
 
The critical updates really aren't that big, certainly aren't 50MB in size.
It's only the security fixes that you actually have to install and these are a few MB in total.
They, along with everything else will then appear in SP1 - on average you'll have to wait no longer than 6 months for a new SP containing all of the updates & patches.

Quote:Then well done, but you knowing not to install all of the patches in one go doesn't mean that everybody would know. True true!!
Quote:The critical updates really aren't that big, certainly aren't 50MB in size. But im on 56k(ouch)and "critical" updates WILL gonna get bigger!!! As for six months, i might be run over by a car in that time and then i wouldn't be able to finaly enjoy a downloadable patch:D .

Quote:
What i really need is cd burners fix

lol, this fix is like 300kb...even on 56k, what is 2 mins of waiting..lol

i was on 56k, when SP2 for 2k came out, now that is complaining!!!

yeah i remember that one(had installed w2k and bam sp2 came out, when i downloaded that one i notice that i forgot liveware for my sblive $"&%/ )

I must be lucky...I have burnt about 7 updates onto cd and whenever I format I have apply them all at once without rebooting.
After reading this post I think I will stop that practice

The 'not installing all the updates in one go' is a fall-over I've kept from the days of 'hotfixes' for WinNT 4.
Installing two or more in one go and then re-starting usually resulted in you never seeing your desktop again until after you had done a re-installation!
 
I think Win2k/XP is a lot more resilient to people 'playing' and doing things manually rather than letting the update programs do it for you, but I still wouldn't recommend installing half a dozen updates and then re-booting, not unless you really enjoy installing OS's

Or you know how to use QCHAIN:
 
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q296861

I'd much rather adjust my attitude than reinstall windows.
Thanks people.

funny, I kept them by copying them from my temporary internet files folder during windows update installation.
Then after I reinstalled I loaded them all at once without rebooting. 8)
But I dont think I have totally destroyed my installation - My system is running fast and stable and it has been quite a few weeks.

With my connection speed having to re-download the hotfixes, etc doesn't really bother me too much. However - driver updates is a different matter altogether - the windows update wotsit lists 3 driver updates when I check it, 1 is for something I haven't got or ever had, another is for something that is working fine, but if I did want an update I could just get it from the manufacturer, but the other is for my sound card, the manufacturer [of the chipset] of which went bust some time ago [Aureal], but it seems MS have been kind enough to make an update for it themselves, but can I download it? no way - it just says that the update failed.
 
I've tried searching for it, but no joy.
 
It's listed as:
Aureal Media Driver Version 5.1.2601.0
 
anyone know of a solution to this?
 
Thanks in advance for any help.
 
 
....... some time later...
 
I found where to download it from as a file [Windows Update Catalog], but guess what? yup - you still have to download it from an ASP-based page [i really, REALLY hate ASP!] & it won't let me download it from there either! Grrrrrrr!!!
If I try downloading an update for XP itself, such as a hotfix or whatever, it works fine - it just totally refuses to download ANY driver update. It goes to do it, shows 2 little blocks of colour in the progress indicator then all-of-a-sudden the progress indicator shows it's finished [1, 2, miss a few, 99, 100 - ring any bells?]. Then it does the same for the installation progress bar & then gives me an error message saying that the update has failed.
 
Any ideas?

Well folks, I still don't know what is preventing me from getting driver updates via the Windows Update site, but I *have* found a workaround.
 
I discovered it by accident whilst installing the driver that someone managed to get for me from the update catalog. I went into Device Manager & right-clicked my soundcard & hit the Update Driver option & went through the usual steps, telling it to include the folder where the driver was & when it listed the possibilities it found 1 of them was from Windows Update, so I decided to try that 1 just to see what happened & it actually worked.
 
I wondered if this might be a fluke, or perhaps that it might have failed to get it from the update site & got it from the folder I had listed, so I tried the same thing on the update for my mouse which I didn't have the driver for & that worked ok as well, so it looks like a valid workaround.

Occasionally the update site gets pummeled with activity and it becomes hard to get a decent connection to one of their servers. As for ASP, I have no idea what that would have to do with the issue since I use ASP (moving to ASP.NET) and have seen many ASP applications work perfectly fine.

ahhh i finaly found xp burners fix on www.3dspotlight.com as for temporary internet files folder, gotta try that !!!