Learning about Microsoft Update Catalog 7.0

Q: What’s the Microsoft Update Catalog 7.0?

A: Microsoft has released a new version of its catalog Web site, which lists updates, drivers, and hotfixes that you can download from update.microsoft.com for local installation. The catalog is available at catalog.update.micro soft.com/v7/site/Home.aspx.

To use the site, enter a term in the search box on the main page (e.g., vista 64-bit driver) and click Search. A list of all matching updates will be displayed. Click Add next to each update you want to download, which adds the update to the update basket.

You can perform multiple searches and add more updates to the basket. After all the desired updates are in the basket, click the view basket link under the search box, which displays all the updates in the update basket, as Figure 1 shows.

Click the Download button, and you’ll be prompted to confirm a folder to which to download the updates, then click Continue. After the download is complete, click Close in the download window.

Each update is placed in a separate subfolder in the destination folder, and each subfolder has the same name as the update title. You can then manually install the updates by double-clicking them, or you can inject them into a Windows Imaging Format (WIM) file.