Nearly 3 months Microsoft has taken down AutoPatcher. AutoPatcher is one of the most useful utilities for everyone especially tech people. If you didn’t know what AutoPatcher was, AutoPatcher was a comprehensive collection of patches, addons and registry tweaks that is designed to quickly patch a system with the most current updates and tweaks available, and requires no user interaction once you have selected what to install.

With AutoPatcher, I don’t need to waste my time and bandwidth in downloading patches after patches from Microsoft Update. Since AutoPatcher is dead, I need to look for AutoPatcher alternatives because I very frequently install Windows for people and I always make sure that the Windows is up to date before I hand over the computer.

First method is to create your own custom Windows installer using nLite. You can integrate service pack and hotfix to the Windows installer CD.

You need to have your original Windows CD and you also need to manually download the hotfixes and service packs and integrate to the installer using nLite. Instead of manually download the service pack and hotfixes, you can use RyanVM’s Post-SP2 Update Pack to integrate to nLite. If you don’t know how to integrate Service Pack and Hotfixes to Windows installer using nLite, you can try looking for “Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 Integrated MONTH 2007-ETH0” which consist of all latest hotfixes and service pack. Just replace the MONTH with the current month. Team ETH0 usually releases an updated ISO every month. But do take note that it’s your risk to use ETH0 integrated Windows CD. It does contain a pirated serial number and also Windows Genuine Advantage crack. It is PIRACY, but I think if you don’t use the provided Windows XP serial number and also crack by ETH0, it should be fine.

Second method is to use Windows Updates Downloader. Windows Updates Downloader only downloads the service pack and hotfixes but does not automate installing for you. Installing the hotfixes one by one is very time consuming, tedious and not very smart as well. Here’s a tool called Hotfix Installer which can automate installing all the hotfixes and service pack for you. However, this program requires the administrator to have good knowledge of the registry and how to install Microsoft Hotfixes and their individual command lines.

Third and final method is the best. It is very similar to AutoPatcher and you can install Windows updates without an internet connection. It is called c’t Offline Update but some people call it DIY Service Pack.

What c’t Offline Update can do is lets you download Service Pack and all Hotfixes for Office 2000, Office XP, Office 2003, Office 2007, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 in 18 languages.

Once you’ve finished downloading the updates, you can burn the contents in “client” folder to a CD or DVD. Inserting the CD/DVD to a computer will automatically prompt you to install the updates.

You can visit the official Offline Update hands-on tutorial page for more information.

[ Download c’t Offline Update ]