Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs Forum

When a windows system has been penetrated by a hacker ... can they disable the Windows Update program? {The WU program seems to be cloud-based and immune.}

For example , a hacker might 'hide' or 'uninstall' some updates to ease further exploits.
I can see that no updates have been hidden , and on the 'Installed Updates' page , none are shown as 'uninstalled' or 'changed'. Does that mean the Updates are complete?

In other words , it would be nice to have a checklist of updates for security , but apparently such a list would have to be specific to >hardware, >OS, and >installed programs, which becomes unwieldy .

It is possible for a hack to compromise Windows Updates but I don't know of any examples where that has happened. When WU says that updates are complete I recommend checking one more time just to be sure, since some updates trigger the need for others.

There are several sites online that keep track of all of the available updates and even make it possible to more easily download them:

http://www.windowsupdatesdownloader.com ... Lists.aspx
http://www.windows-update-checker.com/
http://www.overclock.net/t/1587577/wind ... -telemetry

There are also community made update packs that make it easier to fully update a newly installed system as well as to integrate updates into the installation media:

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/thread ... stribution

Thank you for a very rich response.
- Tom m