Trying Microsoft Update and MBSA 2.0

Today while updating my Windows 2000 laptop I had the opportunity to try two new Microsoft programs. The first is the new Microsoft Update, more of a one-stop-shop for Windows patches. The second is version 2.0 of Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer. Computerworld has some coverage, but here was my experience.

When I started Windows Update, I saw the following screen.



I decided to follow the "Upgrade" recommendation. After running Microsoft Update, I got these results.



You can see that Microsoft Office updates and updates for other Microsoft programs are available. I think the new interface works well.

Once I downloaded and installed all of the updates, I turned to the new MBSA 2.0. It doesn't look that much different, so the improvements are under the hood.



I got my results following the scan of the single laptop.



I don't necessarily agree with the "severe risk" assessment. I think MBSA complained because it found a FAT partition I use to share data between Windows 2000 and FreeBSD on the same laptop. MBSA prefers using NTFS.

In any case, MBSA did not report any security vulnerabilities. It was good to apparently see Microsoft Update retrieving the right updates and MBSA confirming it.