Did Microsoft actually release a “Critical Update Notification Tool”?
Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.
Ask questions, find answers and collaborate at work with Stack Overflow for Teams. Explore Teams
There is a commonly repeated rumour that Microsoft once released a program called the “Critical Update Notification Tool”, which they later had to quietly rename so that the acronym spell something different. The claim is sometimes accompanied by a screenshot of this software:
If you look closely at that screenshot, though, you will notice it does not actually contain the words “Critical Update Notification Tool”. Was this software actually named that? Where did that name appear, if anywhere?
The article is Q224420 from December 2000, which then was entitled “Description of the Windows Critical Update Notification Tool”. An earlier version from July 1999 had the title “Windows Critical Update Notification Runs Every Five Minutes” and contained instructions for adjusting the frequency of notification prompts; later revisions of the article removed those, and instead told readers how to install or uninstall the program.
