They just want to keep track of who's using it with what. I agree it can be painful, but from their perspective it can help testing and lmiit problems of pre-release versions floating around.
Call and tell them your mutual customer needs eventlog.dll version blah. Have the kb article number, NIC info, and driver version handy. Maybe throw in they're a mixed shop of Linux and Windows. 
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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195
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