This is a nifty little utility that enables you to perform an offline update of all Microsoft patches within the space of 25 minutes, (SP2 included).  You may have a high speed connection but hackers out there are relentlessly targeting boxes that have not been patched and the time you spend downloading could be the time you spend getting owned especially with a vanilla 2K or XP install with no service packs.  For those who have a number of standalones systems with little or no network connectivity or everyday users still on dial-up, this facility can also enable you to regularly update your machines simply, safely and easily.   Its almost akin to your own personalised service pack.

As of the time of writing, (Oct 07), for a Windows XP host with SP2 installed you still need to download anything up to ~100 patches (200 Mb+) to get it patched to date and things are only getting worse as new patches are relentlessly released every Tuesday by Microsoft. 

CTUpdate will provide the ability to update Windows 2000, XP, 2K3 and Vista hosts in one swoop, not to mention updating Microsoft Office Products too!

Heisse  offers an alternative to the update predicament, CTUpdate is a collection of script that requires only a few steps to reel in a current service pack at any time, combining all released Windows updates at the time of download. The download script acquires the complete update library for selected operating systems from Microsoft's servers and uses them to created ISO images for CDs or DVDs as desired.

New for Version 4.72:

New: Office 2007 Service Pack 1 integrated

Support added for x64 Operating Systems

New: Support added for Microsoft Windows Vista
New: Support added for Microsoft Office 2000, XP, 2003 and 2007
New: Updates which are not listed in wsusscn2.cab any longer will be removed automatically
New: Service Packs (statically defined updates) may be excluded from download
New: CopyToTarget.cmd added to ease USB device preparation
New: Generator and Installer GUIs will be displayed in German on German systems
 

More information can be found here.

It can be downloaded from here.

Installation:

Unpack the zip file on a PC with a fast internet Connection.

Note: - Windows 2000 systems need to copy the reg.exe file from a Windows 2000 installation CD under \support\tools in the support.cab into the client\bin subdirectory. Windows 2003 system need to copy the reg.exe file from Windows\system32 directory of an existing copy of XP.

Execution:

Double-click the UpdateGenerator.exe file.

Select the variant of Windows you wish to download the Microsoft Update catalogue of patches for.

Select whether a DVD or CD ISO needs to be created.

Click Start.

Wget is used to download the patches from Microsoft and store them in a strict directory structure that should not be tampered with.

Once finished an ISO file is then created.

Burn the requisite ISO to a CD/DVD,

Visit the machine you want to update and double-click on UpdateInstaller.exe

Click Start. 25 Minutes later you have a fully patched system.

Note: - A temporary WSUSAdmin account is created in the install procedure to enable automatic reboots and installation of files without any user intervention required.  This account is deleted after completion - best check though!

After the initial download of all service packs and hotfixes, every time you update, only an incremental update is performed, so essentially you could utilise a fast Internet connection to get all the files to start, transfer all of them to a slow or dial-up link and its then not really a pain to keep up to date.  Every time you update a brand new ISO is created, overwriting the previous version.