Choice is a problem with updates, but they probably went too far. When a choice is possible then people will skip updates which endangers the whole ecosystem.
The prevalence of Windows means that they can't let individuals make too many choices because bad outcomes reflect on Microsoft and not those users or admins who contributed to the problem. There is pressure from governments and companies for protection from infrastructure threats which drives some of this thinking. This is not limited to Microsoft, even Firefox introduced updater changes which limits how users can opt-out of automatic updates.
There was likely an assumption that restart-less upgrades would become a reality more quickly than they have, so the responsible teams went with a simplified update mechanism to protect the ecosystem. That backfired in a range of other ways, but at least the ecosystem is relatively safe.
Not only that, it's more effort to maintain given the number of combinations when users may selectively apply patches rather than there being one straight track of patches.
> When a choice is possible then people will skip updates which endangers the whole ecosystem.
There is a reason for that. Reason not being just the choice itself, but mostly that automated updates tend to range from inconvenient, through bloating up the machine, to outright dangerous to your data and software.
The reason to install updates is security. The reason to not install them is all the other things that get included. Because of that, I wish it was a standard to run security updates separately from feature updates, and keep the second type fully optional. Yes, it's more work for the developers, but it's better for the users (and our industry is going too far with preferring its own convenience over end-user value).
>Because of that, I wish it was a standard to run security updates separately from feature updates, and keep the second type fully optional. Yes, it's more work for the developers, but it's better for the users (and our industry is going too far with preferring its own convenience over end-user value).
This exists for Windows 10. It's called Windows 10 Enterprise Long Term Support Channel. It gets feature updates every 2-3 years but each release comes with a minimum of 10 years of security support.
Leave it to Microsoft to make stability as an Enterprise fearure.
The prevalence of Windows means that they can't let individuals make too many choices because bad outcomes reflect on Microsoft and not those users or admins who contributed to the problem. There is pressure from governments and companies for protection from infrastructure threats which drives some of this thinking. This is not limited to Microsoft, even Firefox introduced updater changes which limits how users can opt-out of automatic updates.
There was likely an assumption that restart-less upgrades would become a reality more quickly than they have, so the responsible teams went with a simplified update mechanism to protect the ecosystem. That backfired in a range of other ways, but at least the ecosystem is relatively safe.