It appears that Intuit is now forcing the download and installation of QuickBooks patches - whether or not you need them.

I remember when Intuit - somewhat wisely - noted that, especially for QB Enterprise, it is very important to allow the customer to decide when to install updates. It was stated this was to help them control downtime, the risk of a patch error during business hours, and so on. For example, an Enterprise customer may want to have their IT department install updates on all their computers at once after-hours or on the weekend.

I think they've devolved.  Intuit no longer seems to understand that, for desktop software especially, people expect to have control over their computers. In may cases the need to have such control to preserve business processes during the business day.  If you have a customer waiting for you to process their credit card or record and print a receipt, you do not have time to wait 5 minutes for a patch to be applied - or worse, fail.

Microsoft understands this, and gives us a wide range of options for installing Windows operating system and other software updates - from automatic, to prompted, to not at all.

We should be able to choose.