Windows 7 Update when not Logged In

We recently travelled from Fife to Spean Bridge, via Dalwhinnie, ie M90, A9 and A86.

As my lady-wife was driving, I had my ASUS Netbook running inSSIDer 2, to observe what WiFi circuits were showing up, mainly BT varieties north of Perth, to Dalwhinnie and down to Spean Bridge.

On stopping at a Dalwhinnie cafe, I attempted to close down the ASUS; but it warned me that it was INSTALLING a Windows 7 Update, so I left it in the car, carrying out that process etc.

Although monitoring the various WiFi circuits observed briefly, I had not knowingly logged in to any; and have not got any "auto-connects" registered for any on that route, apart from Stagecoach, City Link and Mega Bus - but the only coaches seen were all travelling south, so only within range for a few seconds but were detected - none of these lines were even seen on our northward journey.

After each "burst" of WiFis at villages and surprisingly remote spots, I would Stop and Start inSSIDer, to get a "clean slate".

None were of an obviously "free" nature, with no registration required; and again were only "in range" apparently for less than 30 seconds.

At one remote spot, with no obvious habitations etc, I picked up about 8 WiFi circuits.

Some hotels and garages were picked up as the A9 by-passed the locations, which were probably more than 100 metres away, some distinctly more than that; and that was inside the screening effects of our car.

The other registered WiFis are Ednburgh Airport (Virgin 2 hours free), and some hotels in Surrey where I occasionally stay on business trips.

The ASUS has basic Windows 7; and was running in Safe Mode. It had been in use both on the evening before and on that morning, tidying up etc; closing down normally, before embarking on that journey.

I did have an elderly GPS unit, Binatone CARRERA, plugged in to a USB port on the ASUS, as the GPS battery runs down very quickly. The other USB port has a Bluetooth chip.

Has anyone similar experiences?

Edited by deleted (Thu 25-Sep-14 11:03:05)

Several years ago a group of us in a car tailed an Oxford Tube coach for half an hour so that we could use their onboard wifi to access the web and find an address

This was before smartphones were available of course.

Edited by Andrue (Thu 25-Sep-14 14:04:28)

I'm purely guessing!!

It is possible that, via some previous connection, you had auto downloaded the majority of the update - then, during your Scottish trip, you only needed a very small amount more to be downloaded?

Hence, it then started to auto-install?

Afternoon John

That had occurred to me; but I am not aware of any "wide-open", "no registration/password" WiFis that this may/could have happened with.

In my travels to date, I have always found it necessary to actively complete any WiFi connection, particularly on the first access.

Hence my posting on TBB, to find out if any others have observed this etc.

Afternoon Andrue

That had been my intention to try, if we had been in convoy with a suitable north-bound coach; but to no avail.

It is possible to bypass firewalls and logon requirements using UDP to build a tunnel.

Evening Batboy

That I am aware of, I had done nothing of that nature at any time with that netbook, nor logged in to any of the fleetingly available WiFi circuits etc.

Simply booted the ASUS, followed by inSSIDer - nothing else.

Yes, but Microsoft may have.

Will be interesting to see if anyone else has proof of such happening!

With the amount of computers being used on trains, coaches, etc, I would expect that others would have noticed this, acknowledging that most would be logged in to a specific WiFi cicuit.

But many seem to also use them in an "isolated" manner, editing documents totally locally, ie effectively as I was.

Also, thinking back, I did note that the Safe Mode "Help" access was limited to "Off-Line", compared to the usuakl "On-Line" when at home and/or logged in to other WiFi circuits.

Interesting!

My "guess" was based on the assumption that you had picked up a connection that your Computer "thought" it had already verified.

As an example, my Mobile will automatically pick up on ANY Tesco connection, because I once connected at a specific store - but the SSID (etc) is identical at ALL Tesco Stores.

Thanks John

I understand your TESCO example, makes sense - but we were generally far from any such installation, about the only example of those "free" WiFi's (ASDA, Sainsbury's, Costa, Waterstone's etc) being the DOBBIE's just off the Perth By-Pass, which we had passed about about 80 minutes earlier.

Interesting that so far, no one has come up with a (near-) identical experience.

I also must remember to check the next time as to whether the ASUS indicates that it has made a connection at any time.

Also if it has a "Download Record".or a "Log-In Record".

====================

Now found the Installed Record.

Last previous Installation was on 19th August 2014.

The Dalwhinie Installation on 18th September 2014-

KB2894844 Security ...
KB2952664 Update ...
KB2985461 Update
KB2972211 Security
KB2973112 Security
KB2977629 Security
KB2977728 Hotfix
KB2978092 Update
KB2982378 Security
KB2993651 Update

So a fair quantity.

No Times given, only Date; and not clear whether this implies Download or likely Installation only. I suspect the latter.

Still, made me delve further!


I have also checked the WiFi Registrations, only Dobbie's on a fixed site and CityLink on a moving link.

So Dobbie's definitely of a brief transitory nature on that journey; and the only CityLink coaches were going in the opposite direction, so again transitory, brief and about 3 coaches.

Edited by deleted (Fri 26-Sep-14 17:30:52)

Not sure it'll be the same and I cba to start my Win8 at this time, but on XP there is a record of the times of all the WU activities in : C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\ReportingEvents.log

Thanks for that file location etc, XRaySpeX.

I have found it on the ASUS W7; and also on my HP Tower W8.1

I have copied the ASUS version in to a WORD Document, so that I could parse it etc, to hopefully make it more comprehensible.

At present, there appears to be two distinct Installations on that day, around 12:20 GMT before we set out, then at 14:15 GMT during the Dalwhinnie stop.

I keep all our computers on GMT, to avoid apparent time overlaps in October, when "the clocks go back". Gave problems on our Purchasing system., switching from BST to GMT each October.

Alright in the Spring, as going forward, there were no apparent time duplications.