UPDATE: New freeware "Windows Update Notification Tool" added.
It seems the list of features which have been removed from Microsoft's new OS Windows 8 will never end. Almost all people know that Microsoft has removed Start Menu and Start button from Windows 8. Microsoft has also removed Aero glass transparency from Windows 8 which was one of most interesting and eye catching features of Windows Vista and Windows 7. We recently told you that Microsoft has also removed ability to show messages and send emails via Task Scheduler tasks from Windows 8 and we also shared a workaround for it.
And now its turn of the built-in "Windows Update" program. All Windows versions come with "Windows Update" application which automatically downloads and installs important updates and hotfixes released by Microsoft to improve Windows performance, security and to fix problems and vulnerabilities found in the OS.
By default Windows Update does its job automatically but you can change its settings and can ask it to notify you about the new updates before downloading or installing them. To customize its settings, open Windows Update from Control Panel and click on "Change settings" link given in left sidebar. It'll open Windows Update settings page where you can select the desired option from the drop-down box as shown in following screenshot:
If you have set Windows Update to automatically download and install updates, that's ok but most of the users like me select the option "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them", so that we can have full control over Windows Update and we can choose which updates should it install and when. Many times we don't want to waste our Internet bandwidth in downloading huge updates, so using this option we can decide when to download these updates.
In previous Windows versions such as Windows 7, selecting the option to notify us before downloading and installing updates used to work without any problem. Whenever there were new updates available, Windows Update used to show its icon in Taskbar notification area (or system tray) to notify us about the new updates. We could click on the icon and select the updates to download and install.
But this functionality has been removed from Windows 8. Now Windows 8 doesn't show any notification icon in system tray about the new updates available. It only shows the notification about new updates at login screen. Now that's a strange behavior! If we don't log off or restart our computer system frequently, if we always hibernate our system and if we have set Windows to automatically log into our user account without asking for password, how will we know about the new updates because we'll not see the login screen at all?
Showing new updates notification at login screen is absolutely useless and removing Windows Update's notification icon from system tray makes the option to notify us about the new updates broken. What's the use of the option if it doesn't notify us?
I have personally faced this problem while using Windows 8 Pro. It never notifies me about new updates and I always have to manually check for updates using Windows Update main window.
So what's the solution? How to fix this annoying issue in Windows 8? How to show the good old "New updates are available" notification icon again in Windows 8 Taskbar? Here is the answer!
Today in this topic, we are going to share 2 free and very small software which help you in getting this useful feature back in Windows 8.
- Windows (8) Update Notifier
- Windows Update Notification Tool
Windows (8) Update Notifier
"Windows (8) Update Notifier" is a portable utility specifically created for Windows 8 which automatically shows Windows Update icon in Taskbar notification area whenever a new update is available as shown in following screenshot:
You can click on the notification message and it'll launch Windows Update main window where you can choose which updates do you want to download and install. Its very light on resources and doesn't need to install. You can directly launch it by double-clicking on its EXE file.
If you are also suffering from this problem and want to get new updates notification similar to previous Windows versions, just download this free utility using following link:
Download Windows (8) Update Notifier
Please keep in mind that its a portable utility so you'll need to launch it every time you restart Windows. If you want it to automatically start with Windows, you can add its shortcut to Windows startup list. Simply type shell:startup in RUN and press Enter. It'll open Startup folder which contains shortcuts of the programs which are set to automatically start with Windows. Simply create a shortcut of WindowsUpdateNotifier.exe file and paste it in Startup folder. That's it. Now the program will automatically start with Windows.
Thanks to gHacks for sharing it...
Windows Update Notification Tool
"Windows Update Notification Tool" is another similar freeware which also helps you in getting Windows 7 style update notifications in Windows 8 Taskbar. This tool is also portable and can be used in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows 8.
It also allows you to hide the icon from system tray if there are no new updates available. You can also set it to show Windows 7 style icon in system tray. It also provides an option to automatically start it with Windows. All of these features can be accessed using its system tray icon context menu.
You can download it using following link:
Download Windows Update Notification Tool for Windows 8
Thanks to the developer "Quppa" for sharing it with us...
Microsoft has removed many useful features from Windows 8 but thanks to 3rd party software developers, we can get them back in the OS.
Posted by: Vishal Gupta | Categories: Software, Troubleshooting, Windows 8
Josh S
Thanks VG! This has been such a pain to deal with - I'm glad there are still 3rd party developers who enjoy making freeware like this for the rest of us. Maybe eventually someone will find a registry workaround to re-enable the notifications, if the code is even still there. Or, even better, maybe Microsoft will fix this glaring oversight!
Kyle
I'm a Windows 8 fanboy, but i never noticed this kind of fail... I agree with Josh that we hope MS finds and fix this in the SP1 update
thanks for tutorial VG and happy new year!
VG
You are welcome guys. :)
BHBL
Oh yeah this is great. I have been wanting this back. Thanks for posting!
Adriel Jabez
Are you using Eset Antivirus?
Ibrahim
Ah, at last.
thanks :)
Gabe1972
I'd be willing to bet that Microsoft has gotten some requests with help on this particular problem. Until I found your post about this problem I thought it was a problem that I alone was having. I had no idea it's everyone with Windows 8 (Pro in my case). Why oh why would Microsoft be so stupid as to remove this feature. I can't even begin to think that it is possible that they did it to try to get everyone to download automatically, as they would know that not everyone has unlimited download allowances. I have Hughesnet so I have a daily cap of 425MB. I want to be able to control when and what to install.
I certainly hope that Microsoft releases a standalone fix for this or at least includes the fix when they release the first service pack, but the latter will be quite some time down the road. I could send them a lengthy email explaining to them how important it is to have something pop up to let me know that I have updates to download, but it will probably fall on deaf ears...or blind eyes, in an email's case. Oh well, it can't hurt.
I'm sure a fix would be easy to write and easy to install as an update, but how would I know that they sent out a fix? LOL. Actually I've gotten in the habit of manually running a check for updates every few hours or so.
Again, perhaps they just want everyone to just have it set to automatic, and if that is the case, they must think that everyone has DSL, Cable or FIOS. Satellite and dialup hate automatic updates. UG!
Quppa
I had the same thought as the author of this tool and made a similar program: quppa.net/wunotify/
I included the ability to install certain updates automatically as I got sick of dealing with Windows Defender updates manually.
VG
^^ Very nice. Added to the main topic.
Rohit
Microsoft official statement on this behavior - "The reason of removing this feature is based on most of the users' feedbacks. If a notification were to be displayed, this is suppressed if the user is doing something important, especially when a user watching a movie or playing a game, or in the business environment being interrupted during a PowerPoint presentation."
Seriously, I don't get this. It's true that users don't like to see update notifications while doing something important but at the end they do wanna get notified which they won't if they have configured the system to automatically log on a selected user. How hard would it had been to add an option which will allow users to choose what he/she likes. That said i am really looking forward for "Windows blue". Hope they will make things better and give more control to user with this update.
jay
i tried both apps both fail to work the first one (windows 8 update notifier) (downloaded recent version) showed that one update was available for download when in fact i have no updates to install.
the second app (windows update notification tool) which gives a option to download with or without and installer ? (i installed with installer) after installing shows a window about (updates installing exiting....) i don't know if its a error or just normal install procedure after closing window icon in system tray disappears (i have it set to show icon and notifications i assumed that the icon was supposed to stay in the system tray.)
just decided to uninstall don't need the headache hopefully somebody will develop something that does work.
Joe
The second notification tool you are recommending, "Windows Update Notification Tool" installed Trojan Malware on my system: "Backdoor.IRC.Bot. This malware was identified and cleaned by Malwarebytes.
Curtiss
it's also missing from server 2012. this is insane. for those of us who patch servers using a brand new technology called "remote desktop connection," we never see any "new updates available" dialogue at the login screen.
Ron
I agree, this is a dumb "improvement".
A related issue. One of the options is to download updates, but let me pick the ones to install. Too bad the stupid product doesn't do the download. After I select updates to install, it first does a download ... AHHH!
Quppa
@jay: Feel free to contact me (quppa[at]quppa[dot]net) - I'm not sure from your comment why you might be seeing an error with the program.
@Joe: There's certainly no malware in the program, so it sounds like Malwarebytes is reporting a false positive, but please check that the SHA-1 hash and file size displayed on the website match the file you downloaded. I've installed Malwarebytes and scanned the latest version and it doesn't detect anything malicious.