Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft: No More 'Patch Tuesday' For Windows 10 Home Users
citpyrc writes: According to the Register, Microsoft is making some changes to how it rolls out updates in Windows 10. Home users will receive updates as they come out, rather than queueing them all up on "patch Tuesday." Business users will have the option to set their own update cycle, so they can see if any of the patches accidentally break anything for home users before trying them out. There will also be an optional peer-to-peer updating mechanism for Windows 10. Microsoft announced a service called Advanced Threat Analytics, which employs various machine learning techniques to identify malware on a network. As a premium service, top-dollar customers can pay for Microsoft to monitor black-hat forums and alert the company if any of its employees' identities are stolen.
It's interesting how this habit by Microsoft has become embedded in the IT operations of many companies.
It will be cool to see if what the effects are (ie. what breaks) with this change since it's "process" change much more than an a technical change. Often, that's where the biggest challenges are since dependencies and other factors are often invisible at first glance.
>> Home users will receive updates as they come out
Are you sure that option isn't already on? It seems that a couple of my older Windows boxes already spend most of their cycles on downloading, processing (scanning) and installing countless updates.
> Home users will receive updates as they come out, rather than queueing them all up on "patch Tuesday."
So random breakage, then, rather than breakage on a particular weekday. Sucks to be a home user.
> so they can see if any of the patches accidentally break anything for home users before trying them out.
"if"? It's inevitable.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Business users will have the option to set their own update cycle, so they can see if any of the patches accidentally break anything for home users before trying them out.
Looking at the The Register article, apparently Terry Myerson himself actually said the above. So home users are now officially crash test dummies for Microsoft's quality assurance? Cool, buckle me up.
Yeah. Welcome to the new update regime for Windows 10 Home Edition...
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
"Business users will have the option to set their own update cycle"
I've had that for a decade now. WSUS has been pretty easy to manage.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
I was going to dissect the security service for not taking customer data importantly, but the linked articles have no mention of "Microsoft monitoring black-hat sites for employee credentials" at all. I don't know where the Slashdot article editor got that.
Advanced threat analytics is from Microsoft's acquision of Aorato last November, who's main product protected against internal threats by warning of non-typical login activity:
A compromised employee's mobile device exposes the organization, through Active Directory, to identity theft and information disclosure.
Monitoring and auditing solutions (such as tracking changes) of Active Directory cannot correlate information between entity behavior and information residing in Active Directory.
If you preferred the old way then only reboot on Tuesdays.
So can set updates to install a few weeks after they get rolled out to everyone else. That way next time there is an update that hoses people systems like last August's I can find out before I get burnt.
This change is for home users, and as far as I know, most home users already have automatic updates set on their machines. The only difference is that it won't be delayed to next Tuesday.
For those like me who manually check for updates every month or so, nothing will change. That is, as long as we can still decide which update to install.
Aren't drivers in new Windowses required to be "signed" or somesuch, for your own safety? So you can't use "modified" drivers in the first place.
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
It will and it won't be a tablet or chrome book or netbook that replaces it, it won't even be an iPad.
It'll be your smartphone itself. It'll be your work computer and your home computer all on one device with a bluetooth or some other wifi connection to pass video to a full sized monitor keyboard and mouse.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
" so they can see if any of the patches accidentally break anything for home users before trying them out."
Things may have improved, but you still have to reboot for far too many Windows updates for a daily update cycle to be anything other than frustrating as hell for most people. Microsoft used to be hated for that before "Patch Tuesday" was started. I guess they never learned their lesson, and are going to drag the public kicking and screaming back into the daily boot cycle.
What a shame they couldn't have learned their lesson and either started issuing patches that don't require reboots for the most trivial of changes, or stick with "Patch Tuesday" to minimize the pain for the user.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
You'll probably not be able to turn it off, just like so many other forced things you'll must have on your system (one drive, Skype, store, weather, maps, etc).
That's oh so nice of Microsoft to use the home users as beta test sites before the patches are released to businesses.
Oh joy. Now I get to reboot the computer a whole bunch of times a month.
I really wish Microsoft would figure out how to write an operating system that doesn't require a reboot for every insignificant update. I'm sure the Linux people would be happy to teach them.
I don't have to buy a home PC. I've already got one. And I have no plans to get rid of it, since neither iOS nor Android is even close to replacing it.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
The big problem with Patch Tuesday was that most exploits from the following Wednesday on wouldn't get fixed for a month. MS should get rid of that.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
So... they will have to reboot daily from this point onwards ?
And wait for extra 15 minutes before leaving work ?
Oh god. Bring back patch Tuesday.
Take a fresh install of windows, update, restart, update, restart,....
On some machines it says "this update couldn't be installed", after a fresh windows installation.
For win 8 you have to turn to the shitty shop (or is it called market?) to install win 8.1
Windows Update is a horrible nightmare, to my disappointment they still don't kill it and make it better.
btw, has anybody tried updating a windows phone? What a f*ck. "downloading update", "preparing update", "updating", "restarting", "after update modifications", 30 minutes are gone. after rebooting, another update and so on.
Windows has the worst update mechanism of all major players and it isn't getting any better in win 10.
Windows 10. I have a, well, call him a friend, who works at Microsoft and has been forced to deal with the Windows 10 "beta" on his work machine for quite a while now. Apparently it's hard to keep productivity up when the damned thing keeps blue screening all the time. His opinion to me was that Windows 10 was the biggest piece of suckage Microsoft has produced to date. I bought some popcorn and am looking forward to release.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Looks like the Apple Watch is burning people, literally
According to the manual, you're supposed to apply thermal grease and a heat pipe to your wrist before wearing the watch.
Home PC's are going no where.
No my phone is not a real PC.
What is happening is PC's are for the working people again and professionals and not just those who want to access facebook and browse the internet. Second, as we saw for the first time with WindowsXP refusing to die last year is that pcs are now stable and fast enough for light work use so why upgrade?
Poor people who are not educated who want to twitter with their friends may want a tablet and a nice phablet phone, but my pc is not going anywhere. Of course a fellow IT professional (80% of slashdotters are here so I made an assumption) means I still upgrade.
Windows 10 and 8.1 were attempts to go mobile. I finally got used to Windows 8.1 with a start menu replacement and started using a Surface. MS is adjusting appropriately to be a hybrid.
Once China and India's classes start growing some more you will see more young asian professionals buying their 1st computer. Last, millenials make up a large number of our population and our now buying new computers (the professional ones for college and entry level white collar work)
http://saveie6.com/
That is true, but if there are 10 updates every tuesday that would be 1/10*10=REBOOT
It will and it won't be a tablet or chrome book or netbook that replaces it, it won't even be an iPad.
It'll be your smartphone itself. It'll be your work computer and your home computer all on one device with a bluetooth or some other wifi connection to pass video to a full sized monitor keyboard and mouse.
Aint matching my dual screen monitors and my raid 0 ssd and i7. Yes I am an IT professional, but others who need real work done at home (the original IBM PC users) will keep it run office and a real screen.
No a crappy docking station with the mobile version of office won't suffice. At that price you might as well get the real PC.
However, Windows 8.1 is great on a surface or tablet and Windows 10 can do both and run ported Android and IOS apps. My guess is it won't be phone vs pc. It will be one where a real Desktop and monitor is needed for real work and not a gimped OS with no file system.
http://saveie6.com/
Not sure how Win10 will turn out once it's final, but in the preview editions, you can't turn off autoupdate. You only control your reboot schedule, somewhat. If MS pushes out a patch, you either disconnect from the Internet or you download it, eventually. If you have to roll back a bad driver that you got this way, it'll keep making you redownload and reinstall the driver, again and again, and there's no practical way to stop it without some serious PowerShell hackery that might break Windows Update entirely.
It's one of Win10's worst features to date.
I think there's three markets here: (and my numbers are complete bullshit)
1. Joe Public, needs a web browser and perhaps a word processor (90% of the old PC market)
Solution: a cellphone, perhaps with docking station and external monitor (TV)
2. Advanced office user and 50% of developers and gamers (9% of the old PC market)
Solution: Something like the Surface tablets, with docking station and external monitor
3) Real power users and gamers with more money than sense (1% of the old PC market)
Solution: Workstation calibre desktops
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Now... not many are buying home PCs.
Because most people already have a good desktop or laptop PC at home. PCs do not change as much as they used to, so you do not need to buy a new one (or even upgrade your current one) every year like you used to (unless you play games and really want to have as high FPS as possible). A PC now lasts for many years for common tasks like web browsing.
On the other hand, tablets and phones change a lot, while the hardware may not change as much (or rather, as noticeably), you cannot most of the time upgrade to a newer software version on your old device (like you can upgrade Windows Vista to 7 for example).
Of all people I personally know, the majority have a PC at home (those that don't are usually older than 70 years - didn't need or use a PC all their lives, do not care to start now). Sure, some also have tablets or smartphones.
The measurement of sales for something that most people already have is weird for me. Sure, you can measure sales of some new technology or limited-use things to see how they are doing, but to say that, for example, radio is dead because people are not buying new radios as much as they used to even though most people have a radio and use it (at least in the car) is a bit wrong. Most people already have a radio, a TV and a PC at home, just because sales are dropping may not indicate that the technology is dying, it may be that the devices people already have are still good enough.
Maybe one day eventually. But students and people who actually do any work are still buying them. Usually in the form of a laptop, but often desktops if they value power and performance and longevity over portability.
There is a large exodus sure... grandma might not need a PC now that she has a tablet. But nobody is giong to write a 10 page essay on a tablet if they dont have to.
The keyboard can be worked around with bluetooth... but the ability to multi-task-- collaborate with you friends in skype, while having not one, not two, but three browser windows open at the same time various sites with information your citing, plus your editor, plus excel for that graph your working on...
Doing any real work on a tablet is a JOKE. Tablets etc might one day catch up... let you attach a keyboard, monitor, and mouse... and run your desktop apps. Yeah... that could happen.
But so what... that's still a home pc with a desktop OS, with a tablet mode... why its almost like your inventing Windows 8 / Windows 10....or Ubunutu Unity...
Because one's a push model and the other is a pull model.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
I should add 'effectively'; of course technically, both are pull models, but you don't control most of the process on windows.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Even so, most of the time the updates come out, there usually is at least one that requires a reboot. Compare that to Linux where only a kernel update requires a reboot (and as I understand, in the latest kernel versions it no longer requires a reboot).
They aren't disappearing, which is why the sales numbers look the way they do. Most people are satisfied with their home computer and won't replace it if they don't have to.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Still number 1 and 2 need a filesystem. Yes the newer office tries to save to Ondrive by default but still. Even Joe Public does Turbotax and needs a real PDF saved and not gone tomorrow on his Android phone.
A good keyboard is good too.
PC gaming market is growing believe it or not according to a statistic by maximumpc.com. Basically the newer consoles are gimped with atom like cpus and a growing millennial generation. It is growing too as developers and video users do need real towers.
Also it is nice to have storage options to hook into cameras,phones, and external disks.
This is a fad like the netbooks. Not to say tablets will vanish, but rather they do not constitute a takeover. It is like the truck and SUV phase that started in the 1990s. Remember? Do we not have cars anymore? No we have both.
Pc users do not need to upgrade as much does not mean they do not use pcs anymore. Rather they have matured. Once the laws of physics hit cell phones in the next 5 years. Yes I said 5 YEARS TOP. People will no longer buy phones and tablets as what they have works.
If PC makers made great desktops perhaps I would buy them? Right now PSUs and motherboards have improved but not OEMs so I build my own for now. Yes I do recognize that as nich :-)
But the new pc will be Windows based if you need work done and will go from 9 inch atoms to requiring an external monitors to i7's.
The surface is really just a thin PC.
http://saveie6.com/
My IT shop waits at least a few weeks, if not months, before deploying updates. For critical security updates they usually wait about 2 weeks after the patch tuesday that it comes out on. For everything else, they eventually roll them out, but it can take a very, very long time.
I'm not sure exactly what kind of testing they're doing, or if they are just waiting for users to download the patch and see if it breaks things (resulting in a rollback from MSFT), but we never have the latest and greatest anyway.
Honestly, I can't really blame them. There have been countless "bad" updates out of Microsoft in recent years, that break certain programs or BSOD the system or even make it unbootable. However, I don't have a sense that the testing they're doing on these updates internally is adding any value. Probably best just to take a "wait and see" approach: if the update isn't pulled in 2-3 weeks after it lands, it's probably fine.
Back to the days of Windows 98? Or do they plan to stop requiring a reboot for every stupid little patch they release...
Still number 1 and 2 need a filesystem. Yes the newer office tries to save to Ondrive by default but still. Even Joe Public does Turbotax and needs a real PDF saved and not gone tomorrow on his Android phone.
Agreed, and this is where Windows and Ubuntu mobile devices have an edge over Android and iOS.
PC gaming market is growing believe it or not according to a statistic by maximumpc.com. Basically the newer consoles are gimped with atom like cpus and a growing millennial generation. It is growing too as developers and video users do need real towers.
I agree, but the question is really how big is that part of the market?
Also it is nice to have storage options to hook into cameras,phones, and external disks.
And again, this is where Windows and Ubuntu mobile devices win and Android/iOS loses.
This is a fad like the netbooks.
And this is where I disagree, the tablet market is established as BOTH a replacement and an augmentation to the PC and I think it will grow as the power and capabilities of these devices grows. (Note that Microsoft is no longer losing money on the Surface.)
Not to say tablets will vanish, but rather they do not constitute a takeover. It is like the truck and SUV phase that started in the 1990s. Remember? Do we not have cars anymore? No we have both.
Which is what I said. I'm sure I'll have all three devices myself as a power user, but I doubt that will be true of everyone once truly mobile dockable desktops become a reality.
Once the laws of physics hit cell phones in the next 5 years. Yes I said 5 YEARS TOP. People will no longer buy phones and tablets as what they have works.
Again I disagree, I don't think we're even close to being done with Moore's law.
The surface is really just a thin PC.
And that right there is pretty much my point. :)
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
And, quite honestly, by the time you disable the Romper Room crap, get a classic shell, and set it up to feel like a more classic Windows desktop ... it's absolutely fine on a desktop as well. But 100% of the stuff they have for tablets is pretty much garbage on a desktop if you do actual work on your PC. I utterly loathe the metro interface, and gave basically turned it off. So all the money Microsoft is spending "innovating" seems like garbage to me.
Honestly, that remains to be seen. They can make any damned claim they want now, but the proof is in the pudding. Until such time as it exists, and is shipping, it's a marketing bulled point. That's it. They still have plenty of time to say "wow, we can't actually do that".
But, generally I agree with you that there isn't a device which is going to be my smartphone and my desktop.
My personal desktop is a dual monitor setup with a KVM tying in my work laptop, and spec'd to last me the next 5 years or so (8 core CPU, 16 gig RAM, lots of USB ports, and about 8TB of disk space attached). Quite frankly, we're a very far way off from there being a mobile device to compete with that.
If Microsoft forgets that some of us still need a desktop with some muscle behind it, and that we don't use them as toys for recipes, they stand a chance of producing something which is terrible for that use.
A device which wants to be dumbed down to the point it wants to feel like a tablet offers no utility to me on something which isn't a tablet.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Windows 10 on phones will do this exact thing. Google "continuum windows phone 10" for demo videos etc.
It's pretty cool.
Four mentions of Windows and seven mentions of Microsoft on the main page :)
"Business users will have the option to set their own update cycle, so they can see if any of the patches accidentally break anything for home users before trying them out."
Stripping away the spin, updates will come out as soon as they're ready (which is probably a good thing on the whole), and business users will have to test and deploy them at that time, whenever it happens, rather than having a monthly scheduled day to do so.
That "option to set their own update cycle" spin is nonsense. If you do that, every single security fix Microsoft ever rolls out goes public days or weeks before you get it -- like what happens when a zero-day goes public and it takes Microsoft several days or weeks to get the fix out, but it'll be like that for you for every single security update ever. Yeah, no, that is not the way any reasonable large business is going to handle it.
This means effectively, if you are a large company, you will really need to have people on call or otherwise available every day in case an update comes out. But, in 2015, are there any large businesses left that *don't* already have IT people on the clock every day? I see this as Microsoft catching up with the reality that at this point large businesses *do* have IT people on staff full time -- they *have* to have them -- and everyone, including the large businesses, is put unnecessarily at risk when security updates that are ready to roll out are held back to wait for a certain day of the month. It does mean occasionally an IT department's going to have to reschedule a day full of department meetings and team-building exercises to test and deploy an update that just came out, but it's worth it.
So it's the right thing to do, but Microsoft's spin is so much nonsense.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Last week, I finally managed to install Windows 10 Preview on my new Winbook tablet - one that has 2GB/32GB of space.
A few of the things I found strange. For instance, in Windows 7 and 8.1, I could set My Documents to any drive I wanted - it didn't have to be locked on C:\ Which is particularly handy in this setup, where I have a mere 32GB, and Windows 10 requires that you have at least 16GB of free storage space in C:\ to be able to install in the first place. I had done that in Windows 8.1, and now migrated to 10.
Now, OneDrive too has the option of being shadowed on your computer. That too, I had set to D:\ in 8.1. However, here, in 10, OneDrive doesn't allow its backups to be on D:\, and insists on installing on C:\ Which is irritating, given my limited C:\. And I can't upgrade it, since it's a NAND flash in TSOP package soldered to the motherboard, so I'm stuck w/ it. Winbooks don't come w/ 64GB drives, and the other tablets are a lot more expensive (this one was $100). Microsoft ought to retain that capability, and since this is a new version of the OS, w/ even things like multiple desktops (similar to virtual desktops in BSD and Linux), one thing I wish they'd do is introduce the concept of logical volume manager and let one extend the C:\ to the SD card, so that one can upgrade to 96GB or above simply by inserting a card.
I don't exactly get the point of Microsoft Edge/Project Spartan, and I didn't like it automatically importing my IE links w/o asking me. I typically have multiple browsers on my computers, and have different sites on each. (In this case, I've avoided downloading FireFox or Chrome due to the space issue). Also, Spartan loses the feature IE had since 8 and FireFox has always had - being able to stage an RSS on one's taskbar. Not good.
I however don't get the difference b/w desktop and tablet mode in this preview edition. It would have made sense if in tablet mode, they went into a Metro like screen (or gave us the option to), while in desktop mode, retaining everything that we had in 7. Incidentally, even in desktop mode, one can't make it look like in 7: one can only bring all those buttons down to where the Windows button is. Strange. Also, the control panel is now hard to find, although one can go to settings. Like today, I had to go through quite a roundabout way to install a new font.
Other than that, I more or less like Windows 10. I found the ability to switch keyboard languages rather neat, and their providing localizations to different versions of a language e.g. English really nifty. Other things that would be nice to have - being able to download Windows Phone apps from the store - apps like Yelp!, Fandango, et al. Also, under Video, to have the ability to create playlists (in iPad, one can create playlists of either audio or video music, which one can then hear in the car w/o taking the eye of the road).
Also, in Windows 8.1, in the Metro mode (in the Start screen), one could customize the looks and color of that screen (not the same as the desktop background or themes). Again, in Windows 10, this is lost. For now at least, anyway.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I can bog down a core i7 with 16GB ram, with a SSD external drive for dedicated cache, etc.....in seconds with one decent render or Photoshop project with 4-8+ Smart Objects open.
And more and more...if you are even a decent hobbits photographer, you depend on post to do your magic and you can overload a computer pretty quickly even with decen cpu, gnu and ram.
That doesn't even get into having a nice monitor(s), wacom tablet...etc.
I'd put this group maybe in between the #2 and #3 you listed above.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Business customers will simply get updates after 'home users'. Home users will be crash test dummies who will simply be blamed for configuring their machines poorly or using it insecurely. M$ is running into harsher more competitive and demanding business market and hence is working to look better for them, so the monopoly market becomes a crash test dummy market (with all their machines reporting problems back, basically paying to be lab rats).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Fanbois downvoting, eh?
Have you ever bothered to read the notes on Windows 7 updates? You'd be disgusted to realize how many of them "may require a system restart". Over half. WAY over half.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I certainly agree with all that, but I also think that there's a spectrum there as well. Not all hobbiest photographers will need a real workstation, though many certainly will. Are they in that 1%?
Or perhaps my numbers are off and it's more like 75% 20% 5%?
In any case, the vast majority of people I know who are not software developers or visual artists could do all of their computing on a Suface, and certainly 80% of them don't do much more than web browse.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Seriously, how long will it be before tablets have 32GB of RAM?
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction