What are the differences between Windows Updates, Automatic Updates, and Microsoft Updates?

I always get confused with Windows update, Microsoft update and Automatic Update. Today we ( Rejin, Vipin and I ) had a small debate on  this.. It helped.. It helped to add to confusion.. :-)

I googled on it for some time and landed on this document. Even though not so elaborate, the following MS article expains it a bit.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/windowsupdate/FAQ.mspx

An excerpt below:

"While Windows Update provides you with updates specifically for Windows, Microsoft Update expands the service to download and install updates for other Microsoft software, such as Microsoft Office and Windows Live. Automatic updating is a feature that allows you to set your PC to automatically download and install updates using either service, making it easy and convenient for you to keep your Windows PC current. "

In short :

Windows Update :  Manual, the user needs to browse to the site.
Microsoft Update  :  Manual, allows additional updates (office, windows live)
Automatic Update : This is automatic. Can happen from an intranet WSUS Server or Microsoft Server.

To configure the system for proper Automatic update
Check the following Registry Key

H K E Y _ L O C A L _ M A C H I N E \ S O F T W A R E \ P O L I C I E S \ M I C R O S O F T \ W I N D O W S \ W I N D O W S U P D A T E \ A U


UseWUServer  REG_DWORD                1

If the above registry key is "1" it is pointing to  an intranet server. If this value is "0" it will point to Microsoft server for downloads.

The internal servers can be defined at

H K E Y _ L O C A L _ M A C H I N E \ S O F T W A R E \ P O L I C I E S \ M I C R O S O F T \ W I N D O W S \ W I N D O W S U P D A T E

WUServer                REG_SZ  http://yourservername/
WUStatusServer    REG_SZ  http://yourservername/