
Windows 10: New study shows Home edition users are baffled by updates - vezycash
https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-new-study-shows-home-edition-users-are-baffled-by-updates/
======
sisu2019
To start with I am super unhappy with the content and execution of recent
windows updates. Its not okay to keep resetting my preferences and it's not
okay to rip out control dialogs that worked very well the past decade with
some demented metro app (rip display and sound device setting).

But I have not had a single unexpected reboot on my win10 install. It's
because I always update at the next time of convinience. Updating is required
maintenance of any software system and you can't afford to ignore it. I also
see some consequences of questionable behavior blamed on windows. You should
never have hours worth of unsaved work open. NEVER. Don't blame windows or
whatever, just dont ever do that or at least bear your shame quietly.

Also, please for the love of god, stop lobbying for OSes to faithfully restore
your open apps on reboot. The only way to solve a lot of problems is to be
able to really reset the state of everything which is not worth trading for
your ability to better compulisvely hoard chrome tabs. That shit is not
healthy btw.

Finally, reboots are necessary on all major operating systems, even linux.
Remember Windows user used to be free to apply updates when they wanted but
you, yes you, MS hater of yesteryear kept blaming MS for the large number of
unpatched and therefore insecure Windows systems. So they don't give users the
freedom to postpone indefinitely and of course it's also not right. So what
can they do?

~~~
type0
> You should never have hours worth of unsaved work open. NEVER.

How about running long compilations, video decoding, etc

Seems to me that Windows is unsuitable for real work.

~~~
sisu2019
how about you do pending updates and set your work time? I think planning is
still allowed for real work yes? This is why I don't believe that all these
complaints come from super productive future steven spielberg level content
producers because people like that wouldn't even need to think about planning
around such an utter triviality.

~~~
mrpigeonpants
What if I'm about to go to a concert, running late and I need to print tickets
last minute, and suddenly windows needs to spend 30 minutes updating, without
giving me a choice? The fact that you can't stop it in the moment is
infuriating. Also, you can't expect the user to manually configure system
updates.

~~~
sisu2019
what if on your way to the concert your car breaks down because you kept
putting of the required maintenance for months and months? This is exactly
analog to your example. "Car users can't be expected to initiate an oil change
at their convinience". Oh please.

~~~
mrpigeonpants
My computer wouldn't break down without updates. I previously had windows 7
for years and never updated. And had consecutive months of uptime. You don't
get it.

~~~
muthdra
People like you are the reason we have to make system updates mandatory. Can
you imagine if someone important kept an out-of-date primitive OS from
updating for years? We have to be able to patch bugs in software whether you
care about them or not. We are in climate change denial levels of discussion
here.

------
Cactus2018
Win 10 Pro -> Start -> Search -> "firewall" -> "allow an app through Windows
Firewall" -> "Change settings" -> uncheck apps and features to disallow access
to internet.

I turn nearly everything off. ... Check again and find various apps are
allowed. (especially after a Windows Update, but seeming at random as well)
WTF.

This is bad security.

In the past week the following apps became re-enabled in Windows Defender
Firewall: "Xbox Game bar", "Windows Maps", "Windows Calculator", "Movies &
TV", "MSN Weather", "Microsoft People", "Groove Music".

~~~
stuuuuuuuuu
Why does Windows Calculator need network access??

~~~
skykooler
To get the latest rates for currency conversion:
[https://www.windowslatest.com/2017/07/23/calculator-
windows-...](https://www.windowslatest.com/2017/07/23/calculator-
windows-10-updated-currency-converter/)

~~~
noir_lord
Then it should ask for network access the first time and remember what you
said.

I didn't even know it _had_ a currency converter.

These days I just do "200 GBP in hungarian forint" and google does it for me.

Though in fairness I'm a linux user who does some software dev on windows (in
a VM) and that's about it.

~~~
skykooler
Frankly, I didn't know it had one either. I took a guess at currency
conversion being one calculation where the results would need to be looked up
daily, googled and found the above article.

------
MrStonedOne
As somebody who has experience with live updating software on windows while
its running with no downtime, Windows updates has no excuse.

You can use symlinks to blue green deploy the software, swap the symlink over,
and restart the software to have the new version take effect with little
downtime. You can do this with dlls and having the software manually unload
and reload the dll for the same.

locks on symlinks apply to the target, not the symlink, this is piss easy to
implement, and heres the kicker! _Windows already uses symlinks for all of its
dlls and exes as part of the winsxs store_ , so they could already use this to
update without restarting, and even when a restart is needed, they could just
stage it in the background, and do a normal reboot without the need for a pre
shutdown and post startup stage.

This exists, right now, as something you can do in windows, windows 10,
windows 7, windows xp. It works for all of them.

Microsoft has no excuse.

~~~
gtm1260
This! The pre shutdown and post startup stages are infuriatingly slow, and the
message that says 'Please Don't shut off your PC' makes me want to strangle it
with its power cable.

------
js2
I was at my CPA the other day. One of her two monitors went blank due to a h/w
issue and so per instructions from her IT guy she had to reboot. Windows
decided it had to apply updates as part of the shutdown sequence and she was
unable to decline. So we had to sit there and wait 5 minutes for it to apply
the updates, then reboot. (Maybe there's a way to override applying the
updates and yes, she should get her second monitor fixed. I'm her client, not
her IT person, so I wasn't going to intervene. And we had a nice conversation
while waiting, so there's that.)

FTR, macOS has also become increasingly annoying with how it applies updates,
and my iOS devices never seem to auto update at night like they're supposed
to. As in industry, we suck at this. Is Linux the only OS making an effort at
patching without rebooting? And does it actually work?

[https://linux-audit.com/livepatch-linux-kernel-updates-
witho...](https://linux-audit.com/livepatch-linux-kernel-updates-without-
rebooting/)

~~~
crooked-v
> and my iOS devices never seem to auto update at night like they're supposed
> to

Do they have alarms set? For whatever weird reason there's no way to get it to
auto-update overnight if there's an alarm.

~~~
thisacctforreal
I imagine they'd rather you go unpatched than run the risk of not waking you
up for an appointment?

------
CydeWeys
It's unbelievable how badly Windows has gone downhill since 7. Settings have
become nonsensical and split across different panels, application search in
the start menu is frequently worthless, and all sorts of shit you don't want
is advertised or installed to you. Despite having paid well over $100 for it I
feel like I'm being subjected to a freemium model.

I get that Microsoft no longer makes most of their money from Windows, but
that doesn't mean it needs to become terrible!

~~~
maxxxxx
“I get that Microsoft no longer makes most of their money from Windows”

Is that even true? I thought it’s still the cash cow.

~~~
CydeWeys
There's some figures here: [https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/06/29/how-
microsoft-corp...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/06/29/how-microsoft-
corporation-makes-most-of-its-money.aspx)

Windows revenue is well below Office and Cloud revenue, and even below Xbox
revenue. This makes sense; a typical user is probably only paying an average
of $100 on Windows, and infrequently at that. The last time I bought Windows
was many years ago, when 7 came out. I took advantage of the free upgrade to 8
and then 10 since then.

~~~
maxxxxx
Maybe Google should learn from them how to get away from ads. It's pretty
phenomenal that they have been able to shift their main revenue from OS to
other things like Cloud. I know people like to sh.t on MS but I wonder many of
the current tech stars will be able to stay alive and healthy during several
major technology changes like MS has done for decades now,.

~~~
CydeWeys
Seems kind of like a tangent, but, advertising is a field that has existed for
many hundreds of years. It's not the same kind of thing as Microsoft Windows,
which is a specific type of software product. I'd say the fairer comparison is
that Microsoft is still completely dependent on selling software, just like
Google is still completely dependent on selling advertising.

~~~
maxxxxx
I just think from an ethical point of view I much prefer Microsoft's model
over google's which depends on sucking up more and more information about
people. Give it a few years and Google and Facebook will have worldwide
surveillance of everybody on a level that never existed and most people
probably can't imagine. Even companies with a bad reputation like Oracle are
better. You give them a lot of money and they give you a product but don't
need to know every move you ever make.

------
lmilcin
As a contractor I spend considerable amount of effort and money to have my
work tools in good shape. I buy top-notch hardware and am not afraid to buy
software if it helps my life just a little bit.

I can't understand how Microsoft thinks it is okay to force updates on me and
then not even bother to make sure those updates work.

After having couple of high-cost delays due to my laptop deciding reboot while
doing important analysis or deciding not to boot at all due to Windows update
failures I was forced to drop Windows and a dozen Windows-only tools I have
used along with it.

Macbooks are non-starters. The laptops are barely usable. I am heavy keyboard
user and touch-typist and I can't envision using a laptop without physical
function keys. A laptop that can die due to dust speck? Apple, please make a
laptop for people that actually work and need reliability and usability more
than shedding another half millimeter of thickness.

I don't want to say Linux is perfect. It is extremely irritating to spend
hours trying to get basically anything working.

I just want a machine that works and that I can rely to work next day when I
open it to start my work day.

Why is it so hard in 2019?

~~~
diffeomorphism
> I don't want to say Linux is perfect. It is extremely irritating to spend
> hours trying to get basically anything working.

If this is a machine for work, why are you not buying one with linux
preinstalled? For instance the dell precision models:

[https://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-
lap...](https://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-laptop_us)

~~~
gtm1260
Sure that helps you with the initial cruft of drivers and stuff, but later on
down the road there will be many obscure things that don't work right on your
specific distro w/ some weird specific fix/workaround that can only be found
after googling for hours.

------
larrik
Windows 10 updates are SUPER fun when you are running the N version and have
the media pack installed. Usually the updates fail, so you get 6 reboots every
few nights until you uninstall the media packs.

Finding the new media pack that's compatible is another exercise in insanity.
They ALL install without error, but only one actually works. People who think
Windows is simpler or easier than Linux are wrong.

~~~
TomMarius
> People who think Windows is simpler or easier than Linux are wrong.

Or they don't do anything crazy.

~~~
marmaduke
It’s odd your comment is in gray. In my experience, Windows 10 (Pro) works
fine, as long as you don’t go looking for crazy (cause you’ll find it of
course).

It’s like those people running custom Linux kernels complaining about IO
latency on their standard laptop running Firefox. If it ain’t broke don’t fix
it.

~~~
larrik
Being the "IT guy" of the family has shown me that it happens even without
looking for crazy.

My wife's grandparents bought a nice Dell all-in-one desktop, running Windows
7, despite 8 being out. Then Win 10 came out just a few years later (less than
3), and Microsoft _force updated_ them. Well, Dell didn't have drivers to
support Win 10 (and still don't), so I had to do all sorts of crazy gymnastics
to get their monitor back. Content updates regularly break these fixes, of
course.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
You know, I remember back in the day when this law called the CFAA made
"unauthorized usage" illegal.

So.. Ive seen it used against a number of individual hackers. Why not
companies?

~~~
vilhelmen
By simply being in the same room the machine is in, you have agreed to the
EULA and you can take it up with MS in forced arbitration.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
EULA eh?

Show me:

    
    
         1. Where it was signed (show me the document)
         2. The wording of the agreed EULA
         3. Who agreed to it
         4. If theyre even able to make it.
    

Because I know at my workplace, a computer was provided to me. Windows 10. I
never clicked on a EULA. Ive also made VMs on AWS of Windows server 2016 for
testing - again, no EULA. No clickthru.

~~~
brewdad
Until the courts say otherwise and an enforcement body hands out penalties,
none of that is necessary. You used the software, therefore you've implicitly
agreed to the EULA.

It may not be fair. It may not we right but that is the world we live in
today.

------
cbuq
This isn't a problem if, like me, Windows manages to corrupt itself and is
unable to perform a Windows update.

A little over a year ago the automatic update failed, I've tried all sorts of
ways to get an updated version of Windows, but they have all failed. My
research seems to point me to a full reinstall of Windows.

But my computer hasn't restarted arbitrarily in over a year!

~~~
mark-r
I had that problem with Windows 7. For years my media center PC was free from
unexpected restarts. Finally I had to give in and reinstall Windows because
some software needed VS2017 redistributable, and it refused to install on the
borked system.

Decided to upgrade to SSD at the same time since prices have dropped so
drastically.

~~~
Negitivefrags
The need for windows update to be working to install the VS2017 redist was a
super annoying move by microsoft.

It wasn't required for previous versions of visual studio.

Because windows update is non-functional for so many windows users (mostly due
to piracy) we we basically forced to change to static linking to avoid the
need for the redist.

Of course, after we changed to static linking we started to run into a bunch
of virus scanners giving false positives with their heuristics because all
viruses are statically linked.

~~~
mark-r
Thank you for that info, I didn't realize it was a deliberate move by
Microsoft! Luckily my Windows installation wasn't pirated; I never did figure
out why the updates stopped working.

------
politician
It's hilarious how terrible Windows updates feel compared to MacOS updates.

Windows insists on making users stare at an endless blue screen while
admonishing them "don't turn off your computer."

Meanwhile, MacOS completes the upgrades during boot up, and then has the
courtesy to restore your apps - a trick that still makes me smile every time
it happens. It probably takes about the same amount of time to apply the
update, but feels much faster.

Update on shutdown is a bad policy. It's disruptive every time. Getting off
the plane? Don't turn off your computer! Running late for an appointment?
Don't turn off your computer! Going to sleep? Don't turn off your computer!
Just lost power in a windstorm? Don't turn off your computer!

~~~
thirdsun
Counterpoint: Booting my Mac is when I'm going to work on something and seeing
delays due to an pending update feels like an inconvenience. Shutdown is the
time to do those tasks that block me from using my computer.

I'm sitting at my Mac right now and see an update notification popup in the
upper right corner - it has been nagging me for days and every time it returns
I wish it would remind me on shutdown when I don't intend to use my computer
for a while. I click on on "try again tomorrow" although I know that there's
no way I'll interrupt my work when the notification returns the next day. This
continues until I actually remember to start the update instead of shutting
down my Mac.

------
skrebbel
Windows update reboots come up on HN every so often, and I still don't
understand the problem. Windows is my daily driver, and updates force me to
reboot my laptop 2 to 3 times a year. _oh no!_

Plus, usually I can just schedule the reboot to happen at night when I sleep.
All I have to do is click an "restart tonight" button in a notification and
then not shut it down that evening. TBH I don't understand why this is
considered bad design, especially by the HN crowd.

I suspect that the people who complain about this on HN are mostly people on
mac/linux who run windows in a VM 3 to 4 times a year and therefore think that
it needs to update-reboot all the time. I felt the same about Firefox (which
has relatively noisy updates) before I switched to it as my daily driver.

~~~
smush
I have two pet theories on why this subject comes up as much as it does on HN.

1\. Windows Updates were a known quantity for years. Patch Tuesday and so on.
Now there are various short-lived concepts like CB, CBB, LTSB, SAC, LTSC,
Active Hours - it's almost as if some middle manager MBA who recently
graduated said to themselves "how much technical jargon can we throw at 'em?"
To what end? I'm not sure. The tin foil hat crowd (which I've been somewhat
forced to join) would say that 1. dovetails into 2.

2\. Increasing disrespect for the users, which many of we on HN see and hate
(see rest of this paragraph), and the vast majority don't see. Privacy
invasions which cannot be stopped (minus 'hacks') a la quartering of the kings
solders, settings reverting themselves in willful violation of the user's
express wishes, and the biggest insult of all, denial of user-control over
updates, a feature that has been with Windows for decades. Update control
being yanked away from the users, in addition to the telemetry and setting
reverting themselves are viewed by many as Microsoft machinations aimed at
turning the users into the used.

~~~
gruez
>Now there are various short-lived concepts like CB, CBB, LTSB, SAC, LTSC,
Active Hours - it's almost as if some middle manager MBA who recently
graduated said to themselves "how much technical jargon can we throw at 'em?"

Controls how often/whether you get feature updates. They're not applicable to
home users as they only have access to CB.

>Active Hours

Controls when your computer will auto-reboot

what's so confusing about this again?

~~~
noxToken
>Controls when your computer will auto-reboot

>what's so hard about this?

It's not hard. It's that I am out of control of when my PC gets to reboot. It
is a small inconvenience, but it should be something I don't have to put up
with at all. I've had file updates cut short over "inactive" reboots. 10+ GB
downloads that I was hoping to use the following day that never finished due
to a restart.

------
jcadam
I'm off windows for good. Automatic updates which reboot my machine and cause
the occasional breakage are one thing. There's also just too many UI/UX WTFs
(two control panels with completely different interfaces, that f __ing ribbon
in office, etc).

Just bought a new (well, refurb) XPS 9370, wiped it, and installed Fedora. I
have to run Windows at work (corp policy), but they let me install Virtualbox
(so I do all of my work in a Xubuntu VM), so, at least there's that.

------
userbinator
I find it ironic that Windows was long derided for being unstable and in
constant need of reboots, and now they're basically deliberately reducing
uptime.

Unwanted "new features" and the aspect of silently changing behaviour aside,
the technology to patch files in memory and on disk without having to restart
or otherwise disturb unnecessarily the entire system has been around for a
_very_ long time (and amusingly enough, malware is probably the biggest
application of those techniques today); and sending only diffs instead of
entire files which may be 99% the same as before would probably save a _huge_
amount of bandwidth.

~~~
HenryBemis
I was discussing with a friend on solutions on how to make your PC being
'never idle'. As he told me, if the PC is never idle, then Win10 won't enforce
any updates/reboots.

I do not know how true is that, but when I suggested he use MouseJiggler [1]
he thanked me and told me 'it worked'. It is a stand-alone/portable .exe that
'does exactly what it says on the tin'. I use it to keep away
screensavers/screenlocks (on machines I don't 100% control).

[1]: [https://mouse-jiggler.en.uptodown.com/windows](https://mouse-
jiggler.en.uptodown.com/windows)

Edit: I keep away from W10 so I don't know to what extend this would help. I
assume it would delay unwanted reboots, but I don't know the W10 update-
forcing mechanism, and on the diagram depicted on the article I don't see any
'idling' criteria.

~~~
ganomi
There is a nice little tool to stop the reboots:

[https://www.udse.de/en/windows-10-reboot-
blocker](https://www.udse.de/en/windows-10-reboot-blocker)

It changes the active hours every hour so that you will never be outside of
active hours.

~~~
mintplant
Years ago I followed a guide I found online [0] which involves renaming the
"Reboot" scheduled task file and creating a folder with the same name in its
location, so that the OS fails to re-create the task file. Haven't had an
unexpected reboot since.

This technique was familiar to me from the Kindle jailbreaking scene, in which
creating a directory with a certain path would cause the Kindle's auto-updater
to error out when it tried to `rm` what it saw as a preexisting partially-
downloaded update file (the Kindle's OS is Linux-based, so the file-delete
operation fails on a directory).

[0] [https://www.windowscentral.com/how-prevent-
windows-10-reboot...](https://www.windowscentral.com/how-prevent-
windows-10-rebooting-after-installing-updates) (including the "Additional
Steps")

------
EamonnMR
Updates make using Windows 10 as an occasional dual boot on a laptop a pain. I
usually use the machine with limited or no internet and no power handy, so if
I accidentally let it update I'm SOL. As a result I found myself reaching for
Windows less and less.

~~~
stevewodil
Do you need to dual boot? I switched to using Linux full time, and running
Windows in a VM when needed. It also simplifies the workflows because you
don't need to reboot to switch between the systems

~~~
smacktoward
If you're running Windows to play games, you need your virtualized Windows to
be able to take 100% control (or close to 100%, anyway) of the GPU to get
equivalent performance to playing the same game on Windows running directly on
the hardware. This "GPU passthrough" turns out to be complicated to do,
particularly on VirtualBox, which ('cuz it's free) is the virtualization
platform your average hobby user is likely to be using.

(Which is too bad, because I would _love_ to be able to stop dual booting just
to be able to play some games.)

~~~
morrbo
Apparently a eGPU will solve this. Plug the eGPU into the host machine/laptop,
pass through into the windows VM, and itt'l work (apparently) without having
to mess about with, well, anything. Would love to hear if someone has actually
had any success with this approach.

~~~
penagwin
This sounds cool except eGPU passthrough setups generally cost more then the
GPU people want to use no?

------
cm2187
What I don't understand is why, once a restart has been initiated, the update
process is so slow, taking sometimes north of 10 minutes on a powerful machine
using only SSDs.

~~~
drbawb
What I believe is going on is that for small updates it's issuing a lot of IO
to create a restore point; meanwhile for large updates it's essentially
issuing 16-30GB of IO to do a complete reinstall of Windows. I base this
assumption off the fact that an artifact of these large feature updates is a
`Windows.old` directory they use to power their 10-day rollback feature.

For the smaller updates turning off system restore helped immensely on my
NVMe-based system, however I've noticed MS seems to re-enable it after every
major feature update. (Of course, they muck up a bunch of my other settings as
well, so I guess that shouldn't be surprising.)

The only solution that worked for me, long-term, was installing Linux.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
They really should replace NTFS with something that supports snapshotting.

------
MivLives
On one hand as a user it's annoying to come back to my machine in a freshly
rebooted state because of updates.

On the other as a technical support person, both for pay and free, the pain of
dealing with non updated windows is the worst. The only way Windows can
possible stay secure is to update a lot.

I actually like their new strategy of doing a "feature update". They do them
too frequently (once a year would be better) but it prevents the Windows 7
problem where they never rolled updates together after SP1. Last time I
installed 7 SP1 on something I had another 100 updates to install.

------
Animats
The big question with Windows updates today is "what are they doing to screw
me over this time?" From forced installs of Candy Crush to the Big Brother
features of "telemetry", every update is a probable hostile code install.

~~~
lvs
I don't understand why everyone is tolerating (nay, engendering!) the level of
invasion and subjugation that's baked into all the modern operating systems,
linux aside. I want to spend $99 on a perpetual license and not be monetized
any further! It's gone way too far now, and there has to be a way back to
sanity. I suspect laws will be necessary and the industry will need to shrink.
Some will lose their pointless jobs, but so be it. It's a dystopia you're
building anyway.

~~~
unityByFreedom
I mean.. it costs money to continue to develop software.

The idea of paying for an OS is different from the idiocy of Windows-forced
updates.

I understand people think of an OS as a static thing but when hardware changes
you need to rewrite some of the stuff that sits on top, plus security updates.

~~~
lvs
Then just price in the cost of security updates into the up-front price. Done
and done! This "innovation" in tech business plans to maximize perpetual
revenue from users is (obviously) anti-consumer and dystopian. It's
disingenuous to say that you can justify what's happened solely based on the
cost of updates.

~~~
unityByFreedom
Price in the cost of all future security updates? Why would I want to buy
software updates for life? That sounds incredibly expensive. And if a company
were successful at selling this model, they could be taken over by some greedy
businessmen who cut costs in order to get short term profit.

------
kd5bjo
My biggest issue with the restarts is that programs with unsaved state aren't
allowed to block it. Even if I'm asleep and not using the computer, I often
leave half-finished work up to continue in the morning. This works ok most of
the time, but if I don't notice an update coming through it can wipe out hours
of work.

In many ways, it'd be better for Windows to force a restart on a more
frequent, fixed schedule to prevent bad habits from setting in.

~~~
dspillett
I try never leave anything unsaved that I might care about. Past problems have
hammered that lesson home. I don't trust _anything_ with unsaved information.
_Any_ OS. But Windows in particular - in the past because of instability, more
recently due to it being _designed_ to reboot without permission or adequate
warning sometimes three times in a month.

It isn't just unsaved content though: you lose other context too. Browser
windows spread over different desktops, open windows with things selected or
scrolled into view, open apps that don't restart, ... Also, any long-running
processes are fair game to be killed, as of course are connections to external
resources which might respond in an unhelpful manner.

~~~
HenryBemis
Not a problem for me, because I am using Win8.1, but...

I run simulation/optimizations for bots that trade forex. Basically trying
different combinations/permutations in their parameters, and getting anything
between 25 and 1500 results so I can select the optimum result/configuration.
This saves time, because I don't have to run one-set-at-a-time-for-30-mins.

Those optimizations can be running for days. I have literally gone away for a
weekend and on Monday it was still running the simulation(s). There is nothing
'active' at that time, 'just a software running'. If the PC restarts, all the
work is gone, and optimization needs to begin all over.

I can fear that it wouldn't be the only case that a Win10 user would be
impacted by a forced restart.

I do understand Microsoft's standpoint, but as the mighty Steve Gibson says
(paraphrasing), I want the operating system to NOT take initiatives :)

~~~
dspillett
Aye, I've had long-running performance analysis experiments running against
SQL Server killed because the dev machine orchestrating the tests was rebooted
without warning. That was some time after the normal "patch Tuesday" window.
IIRC it was due to an update in Flash for Edge. A feature I don't use in any
browser in a browser that I don't use (but can't uninstall or otherwise
disable) caused a delay to my work. I was not best pleased.

"Windows Subsystem for Linux" amuses me. A tool for when you want Linux, but
would feel lost without random reboots!

------
bambax
> _How annoying are Windows 10 's automatic updates?_

About as much as websites that autoplay videos.

~~~
ourmandave
At full volume while you're wearing headphones.

------
dep_b
Updates on macOS require restarts too. But when I restart, most applications
restart exactly in the state I left them.

~~~
simongr3dal
And most of the time macOS updates don't happen once or twice a month.

~~~
PascLeRasc
And we can postpone updates forever on macOS, or disable them completely.

------
pulse7
It's obvious that Satya Nadella IS NOT USING these Microsoft products (Windows
10 Home)! Bill Gates used to use Windows and complained about it, so it got
better before it was sent out to the public.

How can one use Windows 10 Home, when all CPU + Memory + Network work all the
time performing updates, updates, updates... If you are not using a computer
for 2 weeks, you will not be able to use it for the first 30 minutes, because
Windows will need to... update... Updates make Windows an unusable product!

------
sevensor
As anybody who's been using Windows since the 1990s knows, you have to save
your work to a floppy every 5 minutes if you don't want to risk losing it.

------
yuters
Does Windows 10 updates still have the Focus stealing problem
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_stealing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_stealing))
?

~~~
Scramblejams
Yep. And when corporate IT has installed some batch script that runs
periodically and flashes a console window that steals focus while you're in
the middle of typing, and then after it disappears 0.1 seconds later, for some
reason nothing is in focus, that's super awesome.

If I didn't develop software, geek out on building my own IT infra, or play PC
games, I'd really try to stick to an iPad. :-(

Edit: Could anyone suggest any tools for finding the culprit here? It’s over
way too quickly to catch in Task Manager. Like, I’d love a little live view of
all the UI windows that have been created in the last 60 seconds, with a
snapshot of the process tree that started each one.

~~~
cptskippy
I've never once experienced focus stealing during Windows 10 updates. They
don't give you any indication that they're occurring in Home, Pro, or
Enterprise.

~~~
yuters
I know a fullscreen focused pop-up occured on its own asking to select a time
to "apply updates and reboot" on Windows 7. I was wondering, since it occured
last during a very time sensitive task at my work and was the breaking point
when I decided to switch OS. If it's not happening again I might consider
going back to Windows.

~~~
cptskippy
There are no longer Task Bar notifications in Windows 10. Windows 10 has an
Action Center which is similar to the Android Notifications Panel. Anything
pushed to the user shows in there and doesn't steal focus. It can however
briefly obscure part of the screen with the notification toast.

------
justfor1comment
Windows: Updates are absolutely critical for the safety and security of your
laptop.

Me: Is this a security update?

Windows: No, it's an UI update.

Me: Please don't install this update.

Windows: Restarting...

Back in the Windows XP days you could install security patches without
updating Windows to use the new UI, settings or other random things that the
dev team decided to change. Wish Windows 10 brought that back.

------
p793231
Solution: 1\. switch to Windows 10 LTSC 2\. block all outgoing traffic
(Windows firewall advanced settings) except core networking and apps that you
need to access internet (Firefox)

This will block all updates. If you want you can get manually download updates
from Microsoft: [https://support.microsoft.com/en-
us/help/4464619](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4464619)

I have this setup running for my family (elder parents that first came in
contact with computers 10 years ago) under full admin account (autologin)
since Windows 7 times. Browser is Firefox+uBlock Origin. No security issues
encountered till now.

Updates happen only when Microsoft releases a new service pack (Windows 7) or
releases a version (once I switched to Windows 10).

~~~
acqq
> switch to Windows 10 LTSC

[https://www.computerworld.com/article/3250464/faq-
windows-10...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/3250464/faq-
windows-10-ltsb-explained.html)

"Microsoft changed the support rules for LTSB since Windows 10's debut ... in
a way that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to widely deploy the
edition."

------
temporallobe
These baffling updates are exactly the reason I dropped Windows like a hot
potato over 2 years ago. I am a pretty serious hobbyist musician and used
hugh-end DAWs for years on anything frim Win 98 to 7. As soon as 10 rolled
around, constant unexpected forced updates would severely impede my workflow.
I do indeed understand the need to update, but ok call me a control freak
...but I need to be in charge when and yes, IF that happens. Updating am OS
could break a carefully configured machine that took lots of time and money to
accomplish. I gave up snd tried Linux but quickly found that it’s useless for
serious music production. I moved to Mac and it’s great except that you’re
locked into a pricey walled garden, which is a price I’m willing to pay for
stability and control.

On a related note, I know professional producers (and I am friends with one of
them) that maintain very old OS X systems for this very reason - these highly
integrated systems can cost upwards of $15-20k and absolutely cannot be
updated for fear of breaking something. They usually don’t have internet
connections, so they’re not vulnerable to external threats anyway.

------
jakejarvis
Direct link to the study (without autoplaying video!): [https://www.ndss-
symposium.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/us...](https://www.ndss-
symposium.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/usec2019_02-5_Morris_paper.pdf)

------
tvanantwerp
Microsoft needs to stop treating Windows like a scrappy start-up's single-page
app that is constantly shifting its UI with the latest A/B test results. This
is supposed to be a mature product with an expectation of stability and
consistency--especially in the corporate environment.

------
billpg
I read once that all OS code callable from a process begins with a NOP
instruction, allowing an update to drop in a jump to the new version of that
function by replacing the NOP.

I had to wonder why given that is available, why reboots on updates are
required at all.

~~~
barrkel
Shared libraries - dlls - are not reloadable like this. In fact they usually
can't be deleted at all if they're in use, renamed at best, and that is risky
if it's something that is dynamically loaded and is part of a dependency
graph.

I'd expect the majority code covered by an update to be in shared libraries.

~~~
majewsky
Isn't that just a deficiency of Windows' filesystem implementation, though? On
Linux, you can absolutely overwrite libraries that are still used by running
applications. The OS will just not reclaim the disk space until all those
processes end (e.g. by means of reboot), but new processes will start using
the new libs immediately.

~~~
fencepost
_On Linux, you can absolutely overwrite libraries that are still used by
running applications. The OS will just not reclaim the disk space until all
those processes end (e.g. by means of reboot), but new processes will start
using the new libs immediately._

Which if you're not careful could lead to undetectably unpatched systems -
installed version is up to date, files on disk match if you check to verify,
but some process that didn't get properly restarted is still using the
(effectively) undetectable old version. Combine that with taking pride in
triple digit uptime days and you could have something sticking around for a
_long_ time.

~~~
icebraining
It's not undetectable; just run "pmap [pid]" and it will show the loaded
libraries with "(deleted)" at the front if the original file no longer exists:
[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4786975/what-is-a-
delete...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4786975/what-is-a-deleted-
segment-in-linux-pmap-output)

~~~
fencepost
That's both a correct and useful answer and one that proves my point in
practical terms. If you know enough to run pmap over the process space of the
server to look for issues like this, you also know enough to force restarts of
the affected services post-update.

I could see this being something to add to automated monitoring tools run on a
schedule, but I don't know enough to estimate the viability or usefulness of
actually doing so - would it end up being a rule that in 99.999% of cases
would only actually match if it happened to fire as the server was in the
process of shutting down?

~~~
icebraining
Tooling around that already exists: if you install the needrestart package on
Debian, it will check every time apt upgrades something, so that you can
restart daemons and such.

------
masko
Never have hours worth of work open? Why not? It's unsafe but I always save
frequently, and have never lost progress. However, my issue is that the
computer should behave THE WAY I WANT IT TO.

It shouldn't close everything I'm working on just to restart and perform an
update.

My issue is that Windows constantly performs unintended actions. Wiping away
my background services configurations, performing updates when I have work
open and leave for 10 minutes, or run data telemetry services and spike my CPU
usage.

If it weren't for the native office 365 suite and touchscreen support (I use a
stylus) for my school work, I would have switched entirely to a Linux distro
as a daily driver.

------
happppy
Updates only breaks my window. I was about to throw my laptop last time. I
have just turned off the updates, but MS start them again, so I turn off
updated regularly from services, task scheduler.

~~~
vezycash
There's a hidden option to automatically reenable services after failure -
uncheck it.

There are also tools that make permanently disabling Windows update a one
click affair.

------
adminu
Strangely enough that MS has not yet applied some sort of ML algorithm to
finding the times for updates "best" suitable for each user. I thought that's
the thing currently

~~~
ilmiont
They have.

Thing is, that's not solving the root problem though.

The real issue is Windows doesn't give users enough control, and still takes
an inordinate amount of time to install the updates during the offline stage
(shutdown/restart) on typical home PC hardware.

Merely shifting _when_ updates occur won't help in the long-term, and might
encourage Microsoft to keep ignoring the fundamental issues with Windows
Update...

~~~
garganzol
You can go to Group Policy and select the desired level of control. No problem
with that whatsoever. These control points are not present in conventional UI
nowadays, but they are there in Group Policies, and it's a piece of cake to
tune them up to your preference.

~~~
vezycash
Do Home users have group policy?

~~~
vbezhenar
No, that requires Pro.

------
president
At this point, Microsoft will need to re-write Windows to get it to any level
near an acceptable user-friendly OS. It'll never happen though.

------
mugwort13
Automatic updates can be disabled with 2 clicks of a mouse. That's it, 2. I
can't believe we are still in a culture that only hates Microsoft while
pretending that Apple, Alphabet, Ubuntu, and others don't practice the same
questionable behavior on a daily basis. This article and the so-called study
are narrowminded garbage.

------
ilmiont
Pro edition users are too.

~~~
vbezhenar
AFAIK you can easily disable updates with pro using group policy.

------
Tsubasachan
Not all updates are the same. I run Enterprise LTSC which only gets security
and bug fixes every few weeks. These are small and have limited impact on your
day to day use. Its the old static Windows model.

Its the feature updates that are the problem. And you literally can't defer
those on Home.

------
JustSomeNobody
It amazing me how unprofessional the software industry has become. Users have
had what they're willing to tolerate so steadily pushed against that they've
all just become this industry's beta b----es. But hey, we get to drink beer
and play games and get free food.

------
gscott
Those forces an automatic restart while I'm working and have windows open...
it closes all the windows and loses all my work. This is such a wonderful
feature.

------
Karupan
I’ve twice lost my WSL Ubuntu installation after an update. Poof, just gone
after the reboot. Has anyone else experienced this? (Win 10 Home)

------
cwyers
The fundamental issue here is simple:

1) In 2019, in order to be secure, a computer needs some bare minimum of
sysadmin. 2) Computers are like people -- herd immunity helps a lot.
Unmaintained PCs are not merely a threat to their owners, but can be used as
part of botnets for all sorts of things that jeopardize security for lots of
people. 3) Most users are incapable of being their own sysadmin, and there are
a lot of people who either don't understand that they even have such a need or
suffer from a lot of Dunning-Kruger.

So, with the switch to Perpetual Windows, Microsoft has taken on a lot of
things that people either ignored or did poorly before, and they want to know
why they can't go back to ignoring them or doing them poorly. A not
insubstantial part of the reputation Windows 10 has for being user-hostile is
because of the difficulty of doing this at scale combined with the fact that
some users act pretty hostile themselves, from a herd immunity perspective.
Those are the Windows equivalent of anti-vax parents who complain about the
school system being hostile to them just for bringing back measles.

Windows is never going to be as secure as Android/iOS, with their ability to
bring a new security model to things. But Windows 10 is a lot more secure than
any Windows before it, and a lot of the reasons people think Microsoft are
"ruining" Windows are part of why it's getting more secure.

~~~
CharlesColeman
> In 2019, in order to be secure, a computer needs some bare minimum of
> sysadmin.

That is true _only of security patches_.

> So, with the switch to Perpetual Windows, Microsoft has taken on a lot of
> things that people either ignored or did poorly before, and they want to
> know why they can't go back to ignoring them or doing them poorly.

No. Prior to Windows 10, users weren't forced to install feature updates on
MS's aggressive schedule. They were given _much_ more software stability.

I don't think anyone would be complaining if all MS did with Windows 10 was
force home users to install security updates regularly. The problem is that in
addition to that, Microsoft decided to _also_ aggressively force half-baked
feature updates on them _and_ simultaneously draft them as release testers for
professional editions.

------
nkingsy
The metered connection setting is a must. Windows 10 is a tremendous OS once
you tell Microsoft to back off.

[https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4028458/windows-
met...](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4028458/windows-metered-
connections-in-windows-10)

------
studentik
Archlinux updates operating system, all drivers and all installed programs
with one command. Takes 5 minutes. Windows update is a joke.

------
ionised
They're right to be baffled.

Windows 10 is a schizophrenic mess of half-baked ideas and abusive telemetry
collection, which is a shame because the performance boost it gave to games
wasn't insignificant.

------
davidgrenier
I'm baffled by videos that autoplay on websites.

~~~
kgwxd
The browser deserves equal blame. If yours doesn't give the option to disable
it, know that there are ones that do.

------
g105b
While this is true, I see a lot of comments recommending "better" operating
systems like Linux based distributions... but try getting the general public
to use Linux based OSes and you'll find more problems than just automatic
updates.

~~~
Slashbot
It's ok when more companies switch over to linux aswel you'll start to see
ordinary users more accepting of ditching windows 10.. MS has turned windows
into complete garbage.

------
chris_wot
I think they miss one important point: the fact that Microsoft even needs to
do a restart at all.

It is very rare for a Linux district to require a restart. Even some kernel
updates don’t need a restart. But Microsoft needs a restart regardless of what
they are updating. It’s ridiculous.

