I received updates from Microsoft yesterday

Yesterday I opened one of my standby XP installations that I have not switched on for about 3 years. Within minutes I received the yellow shield on the task bar to say "Updates are available......" My selection in automatic updates is 'Not to download or install but to notify me....' There were 21 updates offered that were obviously missing from this OS. It was up to date 3 years ago when I last used it. From the dates I could see that these 21 updates are the ones that were issued during the period that the OS was not in use. In this attachment you can see the first 3 updates in the list.
Of course I installed them. Further 12 updates kept trickling in during the next 20 minutes.

I am at a loss to understand this. The general consensus of opinion everywhere is that MS has taken down the update servers. Can someone please tell me how the updates keep coming.

 

On XP64, I got nothing.

 

if you did not use it for 3 years and it was not fully updated at the time of disuse, and you have automatic updates on automatic start, then any updates that came about will be waiting to be installed, and with some updates there must be one installed before another can be installed with it. If you want go to the webpage and do a custom scan. also note that some updates must be installed by a shutdown versus a restart.

 

Janice:
According to your image, your computer is set up and configured to receive POSReady 2009 updates.
POSReady 2009 updates were provided for Windows XP SP3 32-bit until April 2019.
If you haven't used your computer for 3 years, that's why it alerted you to them.

secpar:
POSReady 2009 updates do not apply to Windows XP SP2 64-bit.
They apply only to Windows XP SP3 32-bit.

 

I've had this happen with machines offline. Sometimes updates "hang" & suddenly install out of the blue. Can be spooky