Well I found a kludge to this whole winupdate mess. You kind of need a 'test' machine. As I think this might just hose the update path that MS follows on it. I haven't investigated further, but I recall a local file or reg option for tracking updates. Anyway, here is the plan for getting the files for corporate update win98 clients:
1) Go to winupdate.microsoft.com 2) start downloading the critical updates. 3) Run run as fast as you can to windows explorer :) 4) c:\Program files\windowsUpdate\ 5) You will see folders for each update being downloaded (press F5 to refresh). 6) Copy the folders to another location 7) When windows update install the updates, it REMOVES them as it goes! 8) I'm not sure if canceling the install after the download will keep them on the hard drive. (I got a phone call and missed the chance :) ) I could find no temp files created during the install. I actually have the IP addresses of where the files came from, but no the path to them. I will research further. Big thanks to sysinternals.com for the great utilities to track this stuff ;) All this for a 164k file called vm-sfix3.exe The main problem is MS isn't updating this page anymore: http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/downloads/corporate.asp So it looks like the date of july/2003 for the cutoff of Win98 support is kind of bogus. However I did find this direct link method: http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/downloads/contents/WUCritical/q329048/def ault.asp You can just change the MS ref number and get to the direct download page for that update. IF it exhists!!! Q329077 doesn't exist! *sigh* I hope this helps some people. The following is a rant I couldn't resist: IF anyone from MS reads this, how can you hope to start marketing yourself as now having security in mind? You are slow to respond to vulnerabilities. You are slow to patch. You then offer admins who have TONS of 98 users only one method to update (unless I pay for another service). XP has issues as well with service packs and updates. Take any linux patch or update. I can download exactly what I'm looking for from about 6-10 different places. Sorry I needed that. I feel better now :)
