Suggestion re: monthly downloads

[#1]

I spent all yesterday afternoon reinstaling Vista due a failed update on Tuesday night. As well as taking up all afternoon and most of the evening clicking yes and reload to 20 or 30 patches at a time the whole process cost me about 4gb of my monthly allowance as well as a good number of hours of wasted time.
As having an up to date and safe version of os is vital to being online and using PN would it be possible for PN systems to automatically overlook downloads of updates from the MS update site. The amonut of downloads esp. with a reload is never small and unless someone wishes to or is able to work through the night to get the free usage it means that they face the possibility of hitting their limit.
I never get anywhere near my limit and have already, less than half way through my month nearly exceeded it. I recognises it's not PN fault the updates from MS crashed the system but having the ability to reinstall during the day light hrs without facing the package limit would be much appreciated.
Just an idea. 
podman

p.s are extra Gb only avaliable in 5gb £5 chunks.

[#2]

your last question, yes on the new packages, but I think some of the BBYW still have 1G

[#3]

on old pro package which used to be 19.99 or 17.99 ?
podman

[#4]

The cost for extra usage on your package should be shown on the Manage my usage page here.

[#5]

Try setting your Windows "Automatic Updates" configuration to "Automatically download recommended updates for my computer and install them" and then specify a time between midnight and 08:00.
Then just leave your computer switched on overnight, and by morning all the critical updates will be done, and it won't come out of your monthly Plusnet allowance !
For the remaining non-critical updates, how about running manually Windows update BEFORE 08:00 in the morning ? - so you have the benefit of both fast download speeds, and it is still in the free Plusnet usage period.

[#6]

For the more adventurous, why not run a PC on your home network that can act as a caching server for all your operating system updates ?  
You can schedule that PC to download all the updates between midnight and 08:00 every night to make best use of the Plusnet free download period, and then get all your other PC's to fetch their updates from your local cache.
This way means you don't use any 'paid-for' broadband bandwidth for updates, and you get blisteringly fast updates as they are already available on your local network.  
However, just a word of warning, the first time I ran my caching server, it took several nights downloads to fill the local cache - so I had to force the download to stop before 08:00 for a couple of days, so that it didn't eat into my 'paid-for' usage time.  But now the local cache is full, it just downloads the changes from what existed the night before, so no more than a few gigabytes per night (if there is a big change).  In that first month my 'free usage' went up to 81GB on my 'paid-for' 15GB account.  

[#7]

While not strictly on topic, but following on from the use of a caching server for OS updates.
Once you have a server PC that is available 24/7.  you might as well install a caching web proxy as well.
You will be then further reducing your broadband usage as any repeat web fetches will come from the web cache, rather than be fetched from the internet,
and for those cached fetches you will be speeding up your web browsing as the local cache will always be faster than an external network connection.
Then why stop there, I also run a local caching DNS, that can make a very noticeable difference to the responsiveness of web browsing even on my 6.66Mbps 20CN ADSL line,
and the slower your broadband connection is, then the more effective these caching programs become ! 

[#8]

Also remember  that windows updates are usually classified as download sites or servers so download speed may be throttled on some products at some times.

[#9]

Generally my broadband usage is low too so I know what you mean about unexpected downloads.  I usually rise early so I used to switch on an do them pre-8 a.m. when I was on Option One. Now with 10GB it is not much of a problem.  A little bit of flexibility from PN would be good but I fear that there is no room now for this sort of approach.
One thing that I wondered about though - did you have to reinstall the whole system?  I had a failed update a couple of weeks ago but I just went to System Restore, downloaded them separately until I got the pesky one and then hid it.  Currently using notify before install. Was this not possible in your case?

[#10]

sadly don't have the expertise on the cahs to build and run a spare cache sever 24hrs. would also wast to much jiuce.
I had comodo time machine installed but the images that were re-instated each froze during use. Also it was an image so I sadly lost some work in the process. In the same week as my pc failing, I lost my TWO back up disks for certain pieces of work but misplaced encrypted USB pens. not a good week. had backups of major files but now no more. 😞
I'll certainly look at changing the download times to between 12pm and 8am but as so many of these things appear to want user confirmaion it's easier said than done. There may be 6 downloads and number the process halt at no. 3 for confirmation all night. 
podman

[#11]

I did wonder how long it would take somebody to say -
[quote=podman]run a spare cache sever 24hrs. would also wast to much jiuce
The first such server I built, consumed only SIX WATTS measured at the mains plug, doing whatever I asked it to.
My most recent build takes 6W while idle or doing DNS or NTP duties, and a maximum of 10W when running file sharing or OS update services.
Because they take so little power, there is very little heat, so there are no fans at all - and therefore no noise either !
I estimate that it costs me about £5 per year in electricity to run.

[#12]

Quote

sadly don't have the expertise on the cahs to build and run a spare cache sever 24hrs. would also wast to much jiuce.

podman, for those that aren't able to build and run their own servers there are a number of freeware packages out there that allow you to schedule your windows updates to within specific hours. Heres a good example: http://www.splinterware.com/products/wincron.htm

[#13]

Quote from: purleigh

My most recent build takes 6W while idle or doing DNS or NTP duties, and a maximum of 10W when running file sharing or OS update services.

Care to share the specifications of this?

[#14]

Cheers,
for all the suggestions. noe on them seam to negate the need MS insist on to click accept every so often. Ther would be no use setting a compluter to dowload when it would stall mid update just to ask a question.

[#15]

In all the years I've been using Windows auto update, I've never had a download stop to ask for an Accept.  Have I been doing something wrong?
Chris