
Windows update knocks out internet connections - rusanu
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38301548
======
rcaught
> "Some customers using Windows 10 have reported difficulties connecting to
> the internet," said a spokeswoman for Microsoft. "As a first step, we
> recommend customers restart their PCs. If this does not resolve the problem,
> visit our website for further support."

The timeless, "please visit our website if your Internet is not working"
trick.

~~~
cuu508
There's also the good old "Keyboard not found. Press F1 to continue" BIOS
message.

~~~
chipperyman573
This used to be a thing for a reason
[http://alphahole.net/?p=1011](http://alphahole.net/?p=1011) (But yes now it's
basically useless)

~~~
CamperBob2
The reason they cite isn't valid, for reasons explained in the comments.

The reason the BIOS stops and says "Keyboard not found, press F1 to continue"
is to give you a chance to plug in the missing keyboard, so that it can be
initialized and supported by the BIOS before continuing to boot.

~~~
AstralStorm
Any mainboard worth money has a way to skip this check in settings.

~~~
CamperBob2
Yep. This is feasible because modern OSes don't rely on BIOS to the same
extent that DOS did.

------
Jaruzel
This neowin article[1] links to the actual update that caused it, and state
that MS have already issued a fix.

For those in the comments asking how can people carry on using Windows in a
professional environment with update problems such as this... well proper
businesses should be running the LTSB or CBB versions of Windows, AND/OR have
SysOp managed delayed updates, which means that they shouldn't have received
this update and therefore wouldn't be affected.

[1] [https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-breaks-dhcp-with-
lates...](https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-breaks-dhcp-with-latest-
windows-10-update-suggests-a-reboot-to-get-back-online)

~~~
shakna
> well proper businesses should be running the LTSB or CBB versions of
> Windows, AND/OR have SysOp managed delayed updates

So contractors and freelancers need to run and maintain their own Windows
servers?

~~~
Jaruzel
Don't get me started on that one! As a contractor/freelancer myself in the
Microsoft space, I feel that MS have royally screwed us. We used to have
Technet (for approx 200GBP pa) which allowed us access to proper business
versions of OSs and other applications complete with a handful of serial
numbers. They then took Technet away and told us to just use the 90 or 180 day
'trial' versions of stuff. Not everything is available as a trial, and to be
honest, if you are simulating a complex environment in a lab, the last thing
you want to do is completely rebuild it every few months.

The only other option (for me anyway) is to continually sub to MSDN platforms
( approx 1800GBP pa) ... it sucks.

~~~
shakna
Right there with you.

I was a MSDN sub for the last few years since they took Technet.

I just got so fed up with it all, and their constant bad practices, I gave up
working in Windows security, and became a web developer, and my entire stack
is open source, where I can vent and get a response when someone screws me
over.

------
mavhc
And the reason you have to restart, not shutdown and power on again, is
Windows 10 doesn't shutdown when you click shutdown, it hibernates, because
it's so reliable it doesn't need to shutdown.

~~~
shostack
Is that really true? Wow. Is there a way to force it to shut down?

~~~
ticoombs
Hold shift when clicking shutdown

------
dx034
> "As a first step, we recommend customers restart their PCs. "If this does
> not resolve the problem, visit our website for further support."

Great advice when there's no internet connection. Apart from that, the page
looks very tech-heavy. I can imagine many people struggling with the
instructions there.

~~~
eps
If you can read the advice, you have a connection.

------
akerro
Windows 10 and its forced updates are the best things that happened to Linux
in last decade.

~~~
blauditore
While you may be right, it's also a good thing for most Windows users, even if
they don't see it. Windows 10 is actually a better OS than Windows 7 in so
many ways, for power and casual users. Most (causal) users would probably
never upgrade and thus miss out on new features and security updates.

After using W10 for a while now, I've recently been working in a W7
environment again, and it's terrible. There are many little details that have
been improved from 7 to 10, and they add up, making the once-so-great 7 feel
like Vista or XP.

 _(No, I 'm not paid by Microsoft, this is my real opinion. :P)_

~~~
r3bl
Yes, it's especially good when it kicks you out of the Internet connection,
decides to restart your laptop while you're rendering a video, or you're in
the middle of a livestream, or you're giving a presentation, and let us not
even forget the whole "Something Happened" error [0] during the automatic
upgrade to Windows 10.

The thing that marked my Windows journey as over was exactly this: an
automatic upgrade...

...while I had people waiting for me to give a presentation.

And it lasted for longer than 20 minutes, at which point, I had to force shut
down my computer (which of course, broke the Windows install), boot into the
Linux distro I was dual booting, mount the Windows partition from there as
read only (because starting from Windows 8, "shutdown" doesn't mean "dismount
the partitions" in the Windows world), find the presentation and open it in
LibreOffice. And the presentation went as smoothly as it could!

From that point on, I'm completely Windows-free.

So yeah, you can say that forced updates are a good thing, but once they
interrupt you while you're doing something important, you probably will not
want to touch Windows ever again.

0 - [https://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/forum/windows_10...](https://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/forum/windows_10/unable-to-upgrade-to-windows-10-something-
happened/be12b76d-af02-46a1-a00c-4e4af0c29588)

~~~
croon
I definitely have my issues with it as well, but if you have Pro you can
customize quite a few update options in Group Policy Editor, and even if
you're on Home you can at least set "Active hours" to when you're using your
computer so that it updates outside of that. Unfortunately it's limited on an
amount of hours, so still kind of forced, but I've learned to accept it.

~~~
RossBencina
Forced reboot can be completely disabled (current uptime here is 75 days).
Perhaps I tried other things earlier, but this is what finally resolved it for
me:

[https://superuser.com/questions/973009/conclusively-stop-
wak...](https://superuser.com/questions/973009/conclusively-stop-wake-timers-
from-waking-windows-10-desktop/973029#973029)

~~~
croon
Not that I need my computer up for more than a day or two at a time, but that
does sound excellent, thanks for the link!

------
ciaranm
Ah, I think I had this the other day. I booted my PC, it updated, when I
logged in I had no connection to the internet (ethernet). Was confused but my
MBP and phone had working connections so I just rebooted. Worked fine after
that.

~~~
lucaspiller
This is what has been messing up my wife's laptop for the past week.
Unfortunately rebooting didn't fix it for me - I need to run "ipconfig /renew"
after every reboot.

~~~
shakna
Time to set a static IP?

~~~
arielweisberg
Exactly what I did for my spouse's computer. ifconfig /renew and /release
didn't work. Said there was no interface that could be released.

Shook my head and set it statically up rather then spend more time on DHCP I
don't need. Luckily it was a desktop not a laptop. But... they have a laptop
so maybe that's coming.

------
simonh
I've had similar problems with several different Windows laptops on several
different Windows versions. Every now and then they lose their connection to
the internet - not to the router, just to the internet. Things that have fixed
it at various times - deleting the entry for the device driver and recreating
it with an automated hardware scan; Reverting to the Microsoft version of the
driver; Fiddling with the device driver settings (hate doing that). I suppose
it comes down to mismatches between the OS, device drivers and hardware
produced by different companies at different times.

~~~
svarrall
I've had this on all 5 machines I've updated to windows 10, it always loses
the internet when first installed and various amounts of fiddling as you've
described eventually fixes it. Very frustrating, especially when trying to
talk a untechnical family member through the process remotely. This certainly
isn't a new problem.

~~~
ntauthority
This seems to be an issue with certain network card drivers that were shipped
in-box with the RS1 RTM release - my Intel I218 controller tended to have this
issue until I moved on to RS2 pre-releases.

------
AmVess
I left Windows 10 months ago because they have real show stoppers that
shouldn't exist.

In my case, my network interfaces vanished and couldn't be reinstalled or
restored. A PC is not much more than a fancy lump of coal without networking,
so it was the final straw.

How they continue to screw up relatively simple things is beyond me.

I'm just glad that Microsoft doesn't make aircraft or automobiles.

~~~
pdimitar
In a firm with 80+ employees only one guy with an ancient PCI Ethernet card
had problems after upgrading to Windows 10 and his drivers were fixed a week
later. So I don't know what you're talking about.

Poke around in the internet. Outliers like you always exist but you're the
exception, not the rule.

~~~
bluecalm
If you actually go poke around the Internet you will see that people have tons
of problems with Windows 10 drivers. Three examples I and people I know
encountered:

1)crashing SSD drivers (the "fix" for that is to disable some power management
settings for an SSD "sleep mode" which are not visible by default so you need
some registry poking)

2)problems with wireless modems (in Thinkpads, fix is to disable and enable
the device from time to time, of course it says the device is working
correctly all the time which doesn't help)

3)crashes after updating from Windows 7, apparently some permissions don't
update correctly and part of the system assumes it should have some
permissions but it doesn't and the system crash (fix for that is apparently
doing a clean install), this is bad because it doesn't even write anything to
event log for some time before the crash

You can easily find tons of people talking about those problems if you google.
That are only driver/system problems, there is also huge mess with forced
updates which you don't have enough control over. For example if Windows 10
decides to update you can't shut down the system anymore so if you need the
computer now and it freezes you need to wait till updates complete (it's easy
to imagine how it's not acceptable when you want to do a presentation, a quick
fix or react to something before leaving home).

Windows is 10 is huge mess and people having problems with it are definitely
not outliers.

~~~
pdimitar
You forget that Windows is THE biggest and most used non-technical-users-
oriented OS in the world. I am pretty convinced that at least 80% of what
you're pointing at is not Microsoft's fault. That's like blaming the soil for
not killing parasites on the veggies you grow in your backyard.

As for the forced updates -- what would you have them do? Most of the virus
and system-level exploit problems on XP and 7 stem from the fact that some
people go out of their way to NEVER update their OS. Again, what would you do
if you were MS? You can't rely on any random grandma to be update-conscious.
Most people shrug an unplanned restart and forget about it in 5 minutes.

IMO the compromise if you _don 't pay_ for a high-quality user-grade OS to not
have control over the update times is fair. If you want to have control, you
can pay.

I see both sides of the argument and I was an MS hater years and years in the
past. But IMO they made the right call this time.

There simply is no universal win situation for MS when we talk about such a
hugely adopted product like theirs. They did well.

~~~
bluecalm
>>As for the forced updates -- what would you have them do?

The same thing they do on Windows server: display huge red banner: "you need
to update". Hell, make the banner bigger and more flashing every time. Make it
emit sounds if I don't update for a few days. Just don't make me update right
now because right now might be critical time for me.

It's really is a no-brainer. Forced updates policy is a disaster. The solution
is really simple as well: nudge more and more persistently.

>> You can't rely on any random grandma to be update-conscious

Even a grandma is going to notice ever growing red banner with a button "ok,
update now".

~~~
pdimitar
I don't think both of us have solid enough knowledge in user/consumer
psychology but FWIW, I think this would incite a much more violent reaction.

Emit a sound, you say? I can mute everything with a press of two-keys combo in
half a second. Banner? People go out of their way to silence the Windows 10
updates _in general_. People who weren't technical decide to become technical
just to "get back at Microsoft". Look it up, it's all out there in the
internet for the future generations to collectively shake their heads in
shame.

So you know, if Homo Sapiens wasn't what it was you would actually be right.
But facts and history aren't on your side I am afraid.

Finally, I think Microsoft had to introduce at least one small leverage on the
users to tempt/strongarm them to actually buy the higher licenses of Windows
10 where you can control the update times.

Windows is the most widespread consumer OS. I don't think it's so villainous
that they give you 95% for free and ask for money if you want the other 5%.

------
herbst
And this is exactly why i dont understand the usage of windows in a
professional environment.

You have to make updates because of security but then updates fuck up your
work environment.

~~~
ehnto
The fact that it can at any time force a reboot of the machine is truly
ridiculous for something aimed at office workers.

More than once has a conference room laptop rebooted in the middle of a
meeting because even the "postpone restart" only gave us durations less than
that of the meeting. Then it doesn't prompt again, it just restarts. Surely
the user couldn't be doing anything more important than a security patch
right?

~~~
pjmlp
The IT guys weren't doing their job, WSUS exists for a reason.

~~~
noselasd
It's not realistic for every company to manage their own updates, especially
not smaller companies.

Even mandating companies having a person/department managing updates, or
potentially screw up a workday for people if they don't have that IT person,
is not particularly advantageous.

~~~
CamperBob2
_It 's not realistic for every company to manage their own updates, especially
not smaller companies._

Worse, you're no longer even _allowed_ to schedule updates according to your
business needs if you don't have an Enterprise license. Organizations that are
too small to support their own 1960s-style MIS priesthood are completely at
Microsoft's mercy.

~~~
detaro
I thought Win 10 Pro has the Group Policy for this as well, or did they take
it away in an update? (I mean, it is ridiculous to reserve that for the
business-use versions, but I thought at least those get it)

~~~
Mithaldu
It has it, i use it, and people are FUDing based on hearsay or worse, their
own failure to look things up.

~~~
CamperBob2
_It has it, i use it, and people are FUDing based on hearsay or worse, their
own failure to look things up._

OK, here's your chance to correct the proverbial record. True or false: As
with previous versions of Windows, I can configure Win10 Pro to download
updates, install them, and/or reboot when, and _only_ when, I tell it to.

I can also choose to limit updates to genuine security-related matters. For
any given update, I will be able to access the information needed to make this
judgment, with no attempt at obscuration or deception on Microsoft's part.

Under no circumstances will the appearance, feature set, or functionality of
my Windows 10 Pro installation change without my permission.

Further, I do not need to download and apply hacks of uncertain provenance to
achieve these goals, nor do I need to maintain a separate "update server."

Again: true, or false? A one-word answer will suffice but specific details are
also welcome.

~~~
Mithaldu
True.

For the following statements:

> As with previous versions of Windows, I can configure Win10 Pro to download
> updates, install them, and/or reboot when, and only when, I tell it to.

> I can also choose to limit updates to genuine security-related matters.

> Under no circumstances will the appearance, feature set, or functionality of
> my Windows 10 Pro installation change without my permission.

> I do not need to download and apply hacks of uncertain provenance to achieve
> these goals, nor do I need to maintain a separate "update server."

Caveats:

Selecting specific updates requires a third-party tool, wumt, or going
manually with a known KB id via the windows update catalog site:
[http://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/home.aspx](http://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/home.aspx)

The windows UI will only let you process all currently queued ones, if and
when you choose to do so. (Though it does have an option to defer feature
updates, which delays those by "months", but leaves security updates alone.)
Further, when windows puts out combined updates (like these:
[https://support.microsoft.com/en-
us/help/4000825](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4000825) ) you can't
tease them apart in the Windows UI. However, you can, if you know the KBxxxx,
use the catalog to download things separately as install files and skip over
the automated process entirely.

The above however only applies to selecting what to install. Under no
circumstance will Win10Pro, if configured so, install or download anything
without your direct approval.

That said, there is a certain second caveat which might need to be mentioned:
Once you have _completed_ an install process for an update requiring a reboot,
windows will proceed to lock you into the "i'll reboot then, but you can push
it back a few weeks" procedure. However since the decision when to install is
up to you, i don't consider this a big caveat.

------
mtgx
Nadella gutting the Windows Q&A team (probably so he can increase the Windows
user tracking team) is a gift that keeps on giving.

~~~
dschuetz
Or, the marketing team which wants you to fucking _love_ Windows 10.

~~~
Senji
They can start by not forcing me to use IE Edge + Bing to search the internet
from the start menu.

I shouldn't have to install a third party app to change the default browser
and search engine that gets launched from the start menu search. (which I did
anyway)

No matter what you do, you're not getting me to ever use your browsers ever
again MS. I grew up in the 90s and am currently a web dev. I know exactly what
pieces of trash your browser devs produce.

~~~
ntauthority
... except nowadays Chrome is pretty much the equivalent of IE during the 4-6
era, adding various barely-standardized APIs (not even behind flags - why?)
that don't work in any other browsers and having whole teams of 'developer
evangelists' telling people they should target Chrome first and foremost.

~~~
Klathmon
Most of their experimental stuff are behind flags, and the parts that aren't
tend to be finalized or in a stage of finalization but chrome tends to be the
first to implement.

Safari and edge are both quickly caching up (even passing chrome in many
areas), and as much as it saddens me, Firefox is only falling behind.

------
ksk
Wow, seriously Microsoft? How the hell do you create a dependency chain where
one service bug knocks out another service that's critical for daily use?
Reboots should frankly be unacceptable, right up there with re-installing the
OS. This is the general problem with a lot of today's software (barring OSS
stuff). No company gives you a stable, reliable point where you can just use
their tools for what they are intended. Every company wants you on their
update treadmill and you're forced to use some horrendous UX that some
designer thought up while eating a granola bar during their 14 hour work week
/s. The only solution that I've found to get a reliable system is to avoid web
apps like the plague, disable updates on the OS and all installed software.
Don't update unless you have to.

------
pmontra
Does anybody has first hand insight about how these bugs in basic
functionalities are not catched by tests?

~~~
CamperBob2
Microsoft laid off a large portion of their in-house QA team recently.

To meet the new Windows QA team, just find the nearest mirror.

~~~
TeMPOraL
With the whole Insiders program this sounds literally like crowdsourcing QA...

~~~
ntauthority
... or allowing ISVs to more generally test their applications for
compatibility with new Windows releases without a full-on testing/partner
contract with MSFT.

For the few Windows applications I maintain, targeting preview builds is a
great way to anticipate things that will break in future RTM releases due to
perfect compatibility being unattainable.

~~~
pmontra
This is probably the only way but it doesn't apply to businesses like ISPs.
They can easily blame Microsoft even if they could have tested the new
patches. But... does anybody get patches in advance to test them or is it only
for releases?

------
throwayawnotime
better option: Switch off your Windows 10 PC and don't turn it back on again.

------
peter_retief
I still struggle to understand why Microsoft is used at all? The only sane
explanation I can think of is that Microsoft have some licenses that people
need to do certain tasks (They extort money from android makers for fear of
nuisance suits it seems) Surely if developers stood together we could root out
this Microsoft pest once and for all?

~~~
Klathmon
It's just more stable and easier to use as a desktop OS to me.

And I say this as someone that has a bash terminal open 99% of the time (one
compiled specifically for Windows).

And let's not act like an update on a Linux machine has never fucked up
networking.

~~~
peter_retief
I haven't used MS for many years and most of the internet runs some form of
nix. it is just a brand not an actual thing in my view

~~~
Klathmon
I'm not really sure what you are trying to say there, but I was just pointing
out that many developers not only use Windows but like it.

It's got it's pain points and cruft like anything, but I'm generally pretty
happy with it.

~~~
peter_retief
My point is that developers should wean themselves off linux

~~~
detaro
> _My point is that developers should wean themselves off linux_

I assume you meant to write Windows, or are you proposing everybody switch to
FreeBSD or Mac OS?

Still, it's an odd response to someone answering your question of why they use
it.

~~~
peter_retief
haha serious concentration lapse there, wean themselves onto Linux or some
nix. Its way more fun

