My Vista computer is configured to automatically update every Tuesday at 5:00pm. Today it downloaded and installed the following patches:

- Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - August 2009 (KB890830)
- Update for Windows Mail Junk E-mail Filter [August 2009] (KB905866)
- Security Update for Windows Vista (KB973540)
- Update for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Junk Email Filter (KB972691)
- Security Update for Windows Vista (KB971557)
- Security Update for Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2 (KB972594)
- Security Update for Windows Vista (KB956744)
- Security Update for Windows Vista (KB971657)
- Security Update for Windows Vista (KB973507)
  • - Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - August 2009 (KB890830)
  • - Update for Windows Mail Junk E-mail Filter [August 2009] (KB905866)
  • - Security Update for Windows Vista (KB973540)
  • - Update for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Junk Email Filter (KB972691)
  • - Security Update for Windows Vista (KB971557)
  • - Security Update for Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2 (KB972594)
  • - Security Update for Windows Vista (KB956744)
  • - Security Update for Windows Vista (KB971657)
  • - Security Update for Windows Vista (KB973507)

One of these updates broke my network connectivity. The NIC was still available but DHCP was broken, and assigning a static address would not help. The device itself was functioning normally and nothing in the event log gave any clues. Looking in the update history in the Windows Update application, all of these security updates have the same description:

A security issue has been identified that could allow an unauthenticated remote attacker to compromise your system and gain control over it.

Microsoft, how about telling me what the hell is being patched, since I can't use the links to the technet articles as my network stack was broken. Not very helpful when I am trying to figure out which patch has wrecked the system.

Cold light of day edit: I realise this is a Microsoft problem, not neccessilary a Vista problem.

Luckily System Restore actually works, and returned me to where I started at 5:00 this afternoon, with everything working.

One final thing. Why is Vista such a resource pig? This computer is a dual core AMD64 2.30Ghz but it runs like its been eating pastry all day. As I am typing this, I have 4 apps open, my CPU is boiling over and my memory usage is over 1Gb. Why?! This PC is only used for web surfing, email and music.

Capture
Vista ... why oh why

OK - so ending the apps in my tray (Skype, Gladinet, MSN and Avast) have recovered a few hundred Mb, but I don't see why Vista is so bad at memory management compared to Windows XP, Windows 7 ... or for that matter any Linux distro ...

Well thats it, I can't be arsed troubleshooting it. I'm through with Vista. Time to backup, wipe and move on.