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Back Up Windows Patches

By Mohammad Yousef | August 2004

Q: Can you move Widows XP updates without having to reinstall all of them on a slow 56k modem at 28.8kbs that would take forever? I just purchased a 160GB external hard drive and my neighbour insisted on making an image of my hard drive using Norton Ghost. Will that work for my situation?

A: First of all, I’d like to commend you for keeping your system updated despite being a dial-up user. Most dial-up users fail to do so because of the extremely slow transfer rates. Now back to your question. You are looking for a way to move or back up the downloaded patches so you don’t have to go through the never-ending hours of downloading again. Your neighbour is correct, Steve. But why complicate matters and spend money on additional software when you can do without it? All you need is to change the way you download patches from now on. Here’s what you need to do:

1. On the side of the Windows Update screen, click Personalize Windows Update.

2. Check "Display the link to the Windows Update Catalog under See Also."

3. Click the Save Settings button.

4. Click the Windows Update Catalog link.

5. Click "Find Updates for Microsoft Windows operating system."

6. Select your OS version.

7. Click Search.

8. Put the updates you want in your download basket.

9. Select your Download Location.

10. Click Download Now.

This way, Windows patches will be downloaded as executable files which can be backed up to a CD, hard drive…in case you need them afterward. However, note that the patches won’t be applied automatically, so you’ll have to run the downloaded file to apply a patch. As for the updates you’ve already downloaded the default way, you cannot back up these onto a CD or external drive. But you needn’t worry about old patches because Windows XP SP2 will soon be released. Get SP2 and after that start downloading patches the way I’ve described.