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Another Windows 10 Update Causing Problems (windowsreport.com)

New submitter sexconker writes: The recently-released cumulative update for Windows 10 (KB3140743) is reportedly causing problems. Symptoms include crashes, BSODs, and the inability to boot, even in safe mode. The Windows 10 subreddit has many threads detailing the inability to boot. The only fix seems to be booting to a recovery ISO, uninstalling the update / rolling back, and hoping you don't get hit again. W10Privacy 2 claims to be able to (among other things) give Windows 10 users control over the automatic updates.

354 comments

  1. Not worth it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Windows isn't even worth the trouble as a gaming OS anymore.

    1. Re:Not worth it by Megane · · Score: 5, Interesting

      A few months ago the motherboard in my living room PC died. I went to the extra effort and expense to get a copy of W7OEM when I got the new MB/CPU at Fry's. And since Microsoft can no longer be trusted with their automatic updates, either you get 6 gigabytes of W10 silently dumped on your hard drive, or your computer gets bricked now, so I have updates completely turned off. I don't use the computer for internets and it's the token Windows box (AVI/MP4 videos and a couple of specific games) in my inside LAN full of OS X and Linux, so I'm more worried about a bad MS update than I am about getting hacked.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    2. Re:Not worth it by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Windows 10 will sell more Apple gear than Donald Trump.

    3. Re:Not worth it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When I found out that the telemetry updates were dropped in March and turned on in the summer (so I had been telemetizing for a couple months), I pulled them out and disabled ALL updates. I only boot that drive to play certain games. I will never install another Windows. What they did should be illegal.

    4. Re:Not worth it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My current Windows 7 box is my last Windows machine. As are the Windows 7 boxes of those for whom I do family and friends IT. Bye Microsoft.

    5. Re:Not worth it by Stewie241 · · Score: 1

      Does it refuse to accept keyboard and trackpad input when coming back from sleep every morning like OS X does? I hate having to do a force shutdown and restart every morning.

    6. Re:Not worth it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My impression is that "Security" updates are OK, yet on my systems all other updates are rejected.

      I don't know if Microsoft will eventually go "full retard" and push the telemetry updates through as "Security" updates, but if the day arrives then I'll join you with disabling all updates.

    7. Re:Not worth it by Luckyo · · Score: 4, Informative

      You can pull all of the telemetry "updates" without sacrificing the rest. It helps to actually read the descriptions of the updates you're installing. They're not all that cryptic. If it it's an update to "cusotmer experience", "telemetry" or "windows update", don't check the box and hide the update.

      PC master race reddit has a good summary of older ones here:
      https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmas...

      There have been a couple of newer telemetry updates since then. Read what you're installing. Since win7 is not receiving any updates other than security, telemetry BS and windows update BS, it's not even all that much reading.

    8. Re:Not worth it by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      Does it refuse to accept keyboard and trackpad input when coming back from sleep every morning like OS X does? I hate having to do a force shutdown and restart every morning.

      Of course not. It simply doesn't fucking work. At all. But at least you have a Windows machine that doesn't work. So you have that going for you. Which is a good thing.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    9. Re: Not worth it by slazzy · · Score: 1

      Yup, while us tech geeks might be a small percentage of customers many people ask us what to buy next.

      --
      Website Just Down For Me? Find out
    10. Re:Not worth it by LesFerg · · Score: 0

      Does it refuse to accept keyboard and trackpad input when coming back from sleep every morning like OS X does? I hate having to do a force shutdown and restart every morning.

      ermmm.... so why don't you just power it off at night instead of putting it into sleep?

      --
      If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
    11. Re:Not worth it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed, it's all his fault that telemetry can't be shut off completely and many privacy "options" turn back on against the user's wishes.

      What a dumbass.

    12. Re: Not worth it by Nunya666 · · Score: 1

      Same here. My wife's Win7 is the last version of Windows that she'll get. When Windoze dies, I'll replace it with some version of Linux. Crap, the mobile version of /. doesn't have a Quote Parent button.

    13. Re: Not worth it by Stewie241 · · Score: 1

      Because in 2016 I expect to be able to close my laptop lid when I feel like it and reopen it and continue working. Is that an unreasonable expectation? It actually worked pre El Capitan, now it doesn't. Seems to be a bug in handling whatever VMWare Fusion is doing.

      I guess updates in general are dangerous these days.

    14. Re: Not worth it by doccus · · Score: 1

      Perhaps somebody at M$ should point Satya Nadella to this thread. That is if he wants the complete unvarnished truth. His mistake was trying to emulate modern Apples' self destructive policies without realizing that these very policies were what was bringing MORE disgruntled Apple users to install Windows 7.
      I dare you.. have him read just the first half of the comments

    15. Re:Not worth it by samwichse · · Score: 1

      This is much easier than Linux, where I type "dnf update" and hit Y to apply all and don't worry my machine will start wasting huge amounts of bandwidth on unwanted crap and nagware.

      I guess Linux just isn't ready for the masses.

      Sam

    16. Re:Not worth it by creebhills · · Score: 0
  2. Rx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    #bringballmerback

    1. Re: Rx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      #DevelopersDevelopersDevelopers

    2. Re:Rx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No.. #bringgatesback, sadly he has no interest in Windows anymore, so will likely never happen.

    3. Re:Rx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If only they could rope Paul Allen back in.

    4. Re:Rx by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      Strange how he used to be Teh Evilz.

      Back then we didn't know just how bad it can get...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re:Rx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He's still evil. The difference is that Gates is (or at least was) nominally competent.

    6. Re:Rx by KGIII · · Score: 1

      I agree. Those chairs won't throw themselves, you know.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    7. Re:Rx by nukenerd · · Score: 1

      No.. #bringgatesback, sadly he has no interest in Windows anymore, so will likely never happen.

      So he uses Linux these days? What a turnout. Or has he gone senile and returned to DOS?

  3. At last! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Amiga will rise again! (at least it works)

    1. Re:At last! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only Amiga makes it possible, only Amiga makes it happen.

    2. Re:At last! by ZipK · · Score: 1

      The Amiga never got it's proper due.

    3. Re:At last! by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      The Amiga never got it's proper due.

      Damn straight it didn't. but just like VHS, Windows won.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    4. Re:At last! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it's means it is

    5. Re:At last! by ZipK · · Score: 1

      it's means it is

      Indeed it does, but if punctuated properly, the sentiment loses some of its period authenticity.

  4. This is getting out of hand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Windows 10 users should demand a refund! Oh, wait...

  5. Seriously by MrKrillls · · Score: 4, Interesting

    After the Win 8 mess, I'm sure Microsoft is hugely focused on reliability, and yet a series of errors with updates like this happen. Are they hitting a wall of unmanageable complexity? I ask this seriously - not as a Msft hater or as a troll, but I really wonder how/why it seems 10 is struggling. I no longer use Windows so maybe I'm missing out on something obvious to people more knowledgeable.

    --
    Don't step on the baby.
    1. Re:Seriously by omtinez · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nothing further from the truth. Windows 8 might have been a fiasco, but it was not unreliable. After the Windows 8 mess, Microsoft fired half of the testers in the Windows organization and made the other half work solely on telemetry. Windows is now trying very hard to be an "agile" project. So far, they have nailed the fail fast part!

    2. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      After the Win 8 mess, I'm sure Microsoft is hugely focused on reliability, and yet a series of errors with updates like this happen. Are they hitting a wall of unmanageable complexity?/quote>

      Testing is difficult and it doesn't get easier when the complexity goes up. Good automated tests makes sense, but is only half the battle. There are too many varieties of devices out there. Their job is much more difficult than apples. I would suggest, if they are not already doing it, purchasing Microsoft employees a great variety of devices for work. Standardise on nothing, if you can possibly do so. Some devices may not even be used for the majority of the work, but they would still need to test new updates and such on them.

      Basically the only way to completely avoid this kind of thing is with a large enough group of testers, so you can catch the issues before the real world sees them. It likely will cost far more than actually developing new features, but such is the cost of quality when supporting so many devices.

    3. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nothing further from the truth. Windows 8 might have been a fiasco, but it was not unreliable.

      A "reliable" product can be "relied upon" so why did microsoft replace it?

    4. Re:Seriously by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When I was an MIT student many, many years ago, somebody did a study of admitted classes and found they had for years admissions policy had oscillated between looking for well-rounded, versatile students and the most academically advanced students they could find. Every year they'd look for more and more well-rounded students until academic problems started to rise, and then they'd make a panic adjustment. But then they wouldn't really be happy with the crop of super-nerds they'd just admitted, and the process would start all over again.

      Now if there were true, why wouldn't you just settle on a reasonable compromise between technical genius and well-roundedness? Just pick a class in the middle of the cycle and do that over and over again? Because that's not how institutions work. People solve the problems and address the priorities of the present, which in turn generates the problem of tomorrow. As long as an institution endures it will create the same problems over and over again and solve them over and over again.

      Microsoft's management of Windows fits this pattern. Over the years the pendulum swings between the needs of marketing and the need for a quality release. Yeah ideally you meet the needs of marketing with a quality release, but there's a tension and that causes an oscillation between priorities. It won't change until the institution of Windows looks like it is in real danger.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    5. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows on the PC only runs on one CPU type, including the Intel clone shit factory that is AMD. USB is USB, ditto for most other common peripherals. Truly divergent stuff like graphics cards supply their own drivers.

      The amount of truly different PC systems is exaggerated, greatly.

      There is no difference between a shitty HP machine and a shitty Dell machine.

      Stop making excuses for the incompetence of MS, which has been a problem since the 70's.

    6. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He said it was not unreliable, not that it was reliable. BIG difference in wording / semantics! ;-)

    7. Re:Seriously by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I've already been asking this when they replaced 7 with 8.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    8. Re:Seriously by antdude · · Score: 1

      Even in W7 and earlier, and other softwares. Something can always go wrong! :(

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    9. Re:Seriously by dcollins · · Score: 1

      That sounds really interesting about MIT, do you have a reference/citation for that?

      --
      We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
    10. Re:Seriously by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Mostly they wanted to rely on their users to be a huge tester group. I mean, the idea is brilliant: You get a few MILLION testers, all with different hard- and software setups, all with setups that do not only reflect real life machines or are set up to be like real machines used by real people, but that ARE machines used by real people! And all of them have to be beta testers, willing or not, because they can't turn off getting any and all patches you crank out pushed on their machines. And should it actually work out, you can roll the patch out to the real customers, i.e. the companies paying for their OS.

      The only problem with this brilliant plan is what corporations usually and pretty much always ignore when they come up with such great plans: The human factor. In this case, that there are millions of people, some if not all of them also using Windows at work, getting a HUGELY negative impression by the OS and essentially thinking that it's the biggest pile of dog shit since Windows ME.

      Or at the very least Vista.

      Another thing MS obviously didn't take into account that some of those people who use computers at home might be the same people that decide when and what OS to buy next...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    11. Re:Seriously by nine-times · · Score: 1

      It's not just Windows 10. There have been several bad patches involving other versions of Windows and Microsoft Office recently. Microsoft just seems to be botching things recently.

    12. Re:Seriously by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2, Insightful

      MS fired it's QA department last summer so with no QA what so ever it includes telemetry and the developers themselves fix the issues, which of course they only get compensated with their bonuses for adding features with their metrics. Gee, what could possibly go wrong with that?

      I have turned into a fan of 8.1 believe it or not after trying 10 4 freaking times. That say's a lot?

      No, I am so ingrained in the windows world for work and not a Unix admin or developer like many reading this so what choice do I have? What is screwed up is Windows 7 during 2009 actually was a competitor for Linux for non hackers. MS finally caught up. Now look?

    13. Re:Seriously by hey! · · Score: 1

      Sadly, no; it was over 30 years ago, before everything left some kind of Internet trace.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    14. Re:Seriously by jones_supa · · Score: 2, Informative

      It would be impossible for them to operate with no QA department.

    15. Re:Seriously by Billly+Gates · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually with a start menu replacement WIndows 8.1 is a very fine desktop OS. If MS just included the old meny and left the full screen metro for tablets or those who click it to run their netflix on their desktop 8.1 would have been very very successful as many businesses who upgraded just last year would have deployed 8 instead of aging 7.

      Stardock had a $15 bundle that also includes modern mix to launch modern apps in a Windows and a start menu.

      Windows 8.1 has Hyper-V which supports Linux well and is better quality and cheaper than the now defuct VMWare Workstation type 2 hypervisor stack I used under 7. 8.1 has EFI and better wifi printing support and the ability to click on an iso for a virtual cdrom.

      Windows 10 is a clusterfuck and just well nothing. It has no QA and a mesh of things thrown together and is experimental.

    16. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The evidence suggests otherwise.

      --

      Yours

      A. Beancounter

    17. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Windows on the PC only runs on one CPU type, including the Intel clone shit factory that is AMD.

      Aye, and that is why we had to ditch the AMD CPU'ed motherboards we had at work for Intel ones, the mysterious issues we had with the CAD software then disappeared.

      USB is USB, ditto for most other common peripherals.

      I take it then, you've never had the joys of dealing with things like a marginal mouse (won't work in portX, but in portY..yet a portable USB disk works fine in portX), then there's USB memory sticks...

      Truly divergent stuff like graphics cards supply their own drivers.

      I'm currently setting up a low end gaming machine, I'm on motherboard number 3, as the graphics card of choice doesn't like t'other two boards..

      The amount of truly different PC systems is exaggerated, greatly.

      There is no difference between a shitty HP machine and a shitty Dell machine.

      No, they're differently shitty (take it from me, having had the joys of looking after large numbers of the feckers, I'd rather deal with HP than Dell currently..this wasn't always the case..)

      Stop making excuses for the incompetence of MS, which has been a problem since the 70's.

      Amen..

    18. Re: Seriously by xeoron · · Score: 1

      Last year they got rid of a majority of their testers. Making are making Win10 users beta testers.

    19. Re:Seriously by rssrss · · Score: 4, Funny

      So, why do you think they have issued the second stinker in a row? Me, I think it is the curse of the even numbered release. If this one had been Windows 9 it would have been good. But, they knew it sucked, so they numbered it 10.

      --
      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
    20. Re:Seriously by MrKrillls · · Score: 2
      I was unclear. Sorry. I had 8 / 8.1 for a little while. What it did, once I sorted out the interface, was ok for my limited needs. I was, at the time, dual booting with Linux, and after a while realized I hadn't used Windows in a long time. (Not because of un-usability or unreliability, but because Linux was and is so much better, for me.) Soon after, I demolished the Windows partition and turned it into storage space. So, my reference to the sad moment of 8 8.1 refers to it's public reception, rather than it's underlying utility. My comment related to the PR shitstorm that a clunky interface generated, and the urgent need for Microsoft to get EVERYTHING right in 10 - to show that they can deliver. I would have thought they would have had seamlessly perfect updates etc, at least for a while to look great to the public.

      My try with 8.1 was made in the hope they would make better use of the Metro interface. I was disappointed. I believe they threw away a real opportunity. I'm kind of baffled at what seems to me to be flailing around.

      --
      Don't step on the baby.
    21. Re:Seriously by MrKrillls · · Score: 1

      It was reliable enough for me, but it ended up that I just didn't care for it. The interface just wasted my time and felt clunky. The interface got between me and what I wanted to do rather than expediting my work.

      --
      Don't step on the baby.
    22. Re:Seriously by MrKrillls · · Score: 1

      Early on, I was impressed. It sounded like they were really listening to user input. They were asking and listening. But lately they seem not to be doing so well.

      --
      Don't step on the baby.
    23. Re:Seriously by Alumoi · · Score: 1

      When are you going to understand that Windows 10 is still at early beta stage? It's cheaper for Microsoft to force telemetry on suckers and let them bang their heads with the testing.
      And, best of all, no current Win10 beta tester can complain as they didn't pay a dime for the software.

    24. Re:Seriously by Kjella · · Score: 2

      I'm pretty sure that it's all marketing really, but the oscillation is between market share and margin. They do unpopular things and see how much backlash they get, but before people actually migrate away they release a new "we listened to you" version and the cycle starts over. I'm not sure Microsoft has really understands the consequences of their "one Windows" policy or else they're sure they got the market so by the balls it doesn't matter.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    25. Re:Seriously by MrKrillls · · Score: 1

      I dunno. It feels like they are on a very slippery slope towards danger.

      --
      Don't step on the baby.
    26. Re:Seriously by MrKrillls · · Score: 1

      My sense exactly.

      --
      Don't step on the baby.
    27. Re:Seriously by MrKrillls · · Score: 2

      7 was indeed ok. But if every Windows OS was free, I'd be using Linux anyway, now. Too many dingbat hassles with Windows overall, and Linux, while not perfect, is a much better fit for me.

      --
      Don't step on the baby.
    28. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm in the same boat as you, after trying out Windows 10 a couple of times 8.1 is starting to look a whole lot better suddenly.

    29. Re:Seriously by MrKrillls · · Score: 2

      True. But lately they give the appearance they have no QA. That's why I wonder if the sheer complexity of Windows isn't beginning to bite them. I mean they must be trying hard not to push out crap. I'm no big friend of Windows, but I can't imagine they are unaware that appearances matter very much now.

      --
      Don't step on the baby.
    30. Re:Seriously by Teun · · Score: 1

      Indeed, very soon they'll announce the failure wouldn't have happened if people would have left the telemetry on.

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    31. Re:Seriously by MrKrillls · · Score: 1

      Windows 10 shows up as installed on just under 13% of desktops - on a quick search. Even considering the wobbliness of such numbers, anything remotely like that number means you better not be thinking it's beta stuff if you are Microsoft and you want to retain customers.

      --
      Don't step on the baby.
    32. Re:Seriously by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      After the Win 8 mess, I'm sure Microsoft is hugely focused on reliability,

      obviously! i mean, why else would they fire so many of their testers?

      and yet a series of errors with updates like this happen. Are they hitting a wall of unmanageable complexity?

      yeah, despite reducing the QA team, it's someone even more unmanageable!

      protip: if your patching system is flawed, firing a bunch of testers isn't the solution.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    33. Re:Seriously by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Look at the news and google firing QA? MS has none as this new scrum agile is the developers can fix the issues better and the company can raise the shareprice by cutting costs etc?

      But the compensation structure is on features. So as long as you only upgrade with no fresh installs and run what Joe six pack runs you should have more stable results. How else would you explain this? Windows 7 and 8.1 had updates that occasionally screwed with something here and there but nothing even close to OMG cancel all updates and make your machine vulnerable because 80% of all pcs will have bugs otherwise.

      Vista did not have the problems 10 has

    34. Re:Seriously by dwywit · · Score: 2

      Yep - KB3035583 turned up again last week. It's whack-a-mole - inspect the list of patches, hide it, relax until next month when it turns up again.

      --
      They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
    35. Re:Seriously by Billly+Gates · · Score: 0

      I like a good stable OS. Windows 8.1 works fine and doesn't have problems with updates breaking drivers like Linux and Windows 10 do

    36. Re:Seriously by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      Nope what happened is they FIRED their QA and tester teams and replaced them with...drumroll...YOU! I wish I was shitting you, I'm not. Look up "I was let go" by Barnacles on YouTube, he was part of the QA team and he lays it all out, how they pretty much wiped out two whole divisions in a single day.

      Why do you think we had the "MSFT wants moar feedback" article a bit ago? Because YOU are the QA and the beta testers, you and the poor saps running Win 10 " so alpha crap we let anybody have it for free" Insider Edition are the ones responsible for the "quality" of Win 10.....wanna bet Nadella got this "bright" idea at some seminar where words like "agile" and "synergy" were passed around like gum?

      This is why Win 10 adoption has flatlined and why I advise my customers to avoid it like an STD, as long as their idea of QA and testing is "Let some kids download the alpha and if they don't rage on the forums? Its good we'll ship that" its gonna be a buggy POS.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    37. Re:Seriously by LVSlushdat · · Score: 1

      I supported/used Windows since Windows 3.11 as a sysadmin, but when I retired in 2010, I decided I was done with MS products. Since I'd started with Linux way back in the mid 90s, I decided all of my home systems would move to Linux when I retired in 2010. Since both of my main home systems came with Windows 7 Pro, I created a Virtualbox Windows 7 VM on each, using the productkey for the original Windows7 on the system. Up until the fact that MS was sliding their crapware "telemetry" updates into Windows 7 too, I'd been only firing up the VM every month or so to let it update. Now, I have disabled WU on it, and keep it for "legacy" sakes.. Frankly I'm torn between laughing my ass off when I hear about how MS has fucked up Windows 10, and being really really sorry to see so many people using it and having no flippin' clue (OR just not giving a shit) about what a total nightmare Windows 10 is..

      --
      THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
    38. Re:Seriously by LVSlushdat · · Score: 1

      ...why I advise my customers to avoid it like an STD..

      Heh... No kidding.. Hadn't thought about that.. It *is* like a STD (for your computer).... PERFECT DESCRIPTION!!!

      --
      THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
    39. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, why do you think they have issued the second stinker in a row? Me, I think it is the curse of the even numbered release. If this one had been Windows 9 it would have been good. But, they knew it sucked, so they numbered it 10.

      They laid off all their testers a couple years ago. Doesn't matter what the release number is anymore.

    40. Re:Seriously by pkinetics · · Score: 1

      If the rumors were true, they didn't use windows 9 because some a lot of software was written to do OS version checks as Windows 9*, which would pick up 95 and 97. They wanted to avoid any problems this would have caused.

    41. Re:Seriously by vilanye · · Score: 1

      What is telling is that they are hiding "upgrade" to Windows 10 in a KB number.

      Why don't they simply have an entry in Windows Update that says: "Upgrade to Windows 10"? If someone hides it, MS should respect it and stop un-hiding it.

      The fact that they hide it in what looks like a normal update instead of being upfront about it says a lot about MS and their lack of confidence in 10.

      Installing patches has always been dodgy with Windows, but now it is also time consuming, having to search third party sites to find out what it really does.

    42. Re:Seriously by dbreeze · · Score: 1

      Wrong answer. The correct response is, "5 digit user # is all the reference/citation you need. Bitch."

      --
      When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
    43. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You keep repeating this, but

      with no QA what so ever

      is literally not true. That they cut back on their testers is true. What you're saying is false, and at this point it's been challenged enough that your continued repetition is a lie.

    44. Re:Seriously by just+another+AC · · Score: 5, Funny

      If the rumors were true, they didn't use windows 9 because some a lot of software was written to do OS version checks as Windows 9*, which would pick up 95 and 97.

      Here I was thinking I had endured every major windows version, now you are telling me I must go back and look for a 97 to complete the set? ...sigh... ok. Where is that old pentium II laptop again?

    45. Re:Seriously by peragrin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Apple has public betas for the next version. It is optional. The beta testers deal with bugs and users get mostly stable updates. I have been on iOS beta for 8 months now. And I don't notice the difference.

      Why can't Microsoft setup a Windows 10 beta with all the telemetry data and regular users a release behind. It wouldn't be prefect but most of these bugs would be cleaned up.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    46. Re:Seriously by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      After the Win 8 mess, I'm sure Microsoft is hugely focused on reliability, and yet a series of errors with updates like this happen. Are they hitting a wall of unmanageable complexity? I ask this seriously - not as a Msft hater or as a troll, but I really wonder how/why it seems 10 is struggling. I no longer use Windows so maybe I'm missing out on something obvious to people more knowledgeable.

      Windows has always screwed up people's computers with updates. Maybe if you only used the Office suite, it didn't happen as often. But if you used a lot of programs, it happened as often as not. We got to the point of not having meetings the day after updates. Settings changed, removal of software, it could be a mess. And a lot of people simply turned off updates.

      So when Microsoft came out with the Bohica, no choice updating, it was inevitable that unless something changed radically, that a mess would ensue. Nothing changed. The interesting thing is Slashdot is only noteing a small number of the screwups.

      But then again, that old BSOD just gives a nice sense of nostalgia, doesn't it?

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    47. Re:Seriously by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 0

      Actually with a start menu replacement WIndows 8.1 is a very fine desktop OS.

      Oh yes. And Windows Vista and ME were actually the best operating systems they ever put out.

      After I got the better half a new laptop with W8, then 8.1 on it to replace her W7 notebook, she used it for a month and refused to use it any longer.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    48. Re:Seriously by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      I like a good stable OS. Windows 8.1 works fine and doesn't have problems with updates breaking drivers like Linux and Windows 10 do

      Which drivers does linux break? I must not be using any of them.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    49. Re: Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't have to add stuff in the module blacklist file on Windows to have wifi or trackpad working properly.

    50. Re:Seriously by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Just to be fair, M$'s Windows anal probe 10 is a hugely offensive invasion of privacy and Linux does regularly break drivers. Linux is not just Linux it is a series of distributions many of the more far more experimental than the stable supported distributions. So yeah you can do all sorts of wacky things with Linux, like create your very own personal distribution from the collected resources available, how stable will you own personal distribution be, likely not very because many eyes spot and remove the bugs before they can create a problem. Keep in mind Linux is right there hiding in the background of Android, which would have to be considered the most stable although somewhat clunky (due to various manufacturers) Linux distribution.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    51. Re:Seriously by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      In other words, let's wait and hope for a Win10.1. It turned 8 from a train wreck into recyclable metal, maybe it can turn the turd that 10 is into fertilizer...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    52. Re:Seriously by dbIII · · Score: 1

      What is screwed up is Windows 7 during 2009 actually was a competitor for Linux

      I thought it funny that with it's snapshot windows for applications it looked a bit like the Enlightenment Window Manager from just before Slashdot started :)

      However all it needs is multiple desktops and better multi-monitor support and I'd give it a gold star. A single Win10 machine is giving me far more trouble than 25 Win7 machines that rarely have a problem that persists over a reboot. It seems about 95% of the Win7 problems I've seen over the last two years are update related.

    53. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I envy you. I wish I could afford to tell them to fuck off.

    54. Re:Seriously by gweihir · · Score: 1

      I think this is what is happening here: MS does not have the technological expertise to maintain their OS in a reliable way. Sure the "telemetry"/spyware was intentional, but these crashes are not. They must know that one of the main things holding people back from going to Win10 is the fear of an unstoppable patch bricking their machines or making them otherwise unreliable or unusable. At the same time, MS has staked their future on Win10, so they will do their very best to make sure updated are reliable. Apparently, that "very best" is not enough to get the job done well.

      My take is that not only are they technologically incompetent with regard to their own product, but they also have an unrealistic view of their own skills. Otherwise they would not have made patches mandatory. The only explanation for a screw-up this massive I have is a large-organization variant of the Dunning-Kruger Effect: They are now so incompetent that they cannot see their own incompetence.

      Sure, this sounds like MS-bashing and it is. But it is justified bashing, as the available evidence suggests that MS does not have the skills anymore to produce a Windows OS that can be operated reliably.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    55. Re:Seriously by gweihir · · Score: 1

      What you are saying is that MIT does not understands its own business and that they do not have viable strategic planning. I think that description also fits Microsoft very well indeed.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    56. Re:Seriously by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Indeed. On the even releases they are cocky and think they have it all figured out and can build the future. Hence they crash and burn to nobodies surprises. On the odd releases they were unsure and timid and did the best work they could and tried very hard to make a usable, but non-flashy OS. Hence that worked pretty well.

      Hey, while I think you were trying to be funny (and succeeding), you may actually be on to something here...

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    57. Re:Seriously by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Indeed. I am a Linux user since 1995 and still use it for anything except gaming and MS Office (which I have to use for some of our customers). With Win7, I was somewhat impressed and have stopped dual-booting mostly. But with what they are putting out recently, I can only hope that gaming on Linux is ready when Win7 support ends. Vulkan and mobile games may help a lot in that aspect. I may keep some VM or laptop around for MS Office, but that is it.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    58. Re: Seriously by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      I went the Insider route soon after W10's release, and I never rated a release above a 2. Running a torrent program including Microsoft's distributed updates scheme caused Windows to eventually crash. Now I've got a situation where Windows crashes before shutdown and restart. Edge is still missing a number of important features.

    59. Re:Seriously by unixisc · · Score: 1

      How does anybody buying a new computer avoid it NOW? It comes pretty much pre-installed on all computers. I do concur w/ the buggy aspect, though - like in my laptop, the Windows Store, Photos and Camera has stopped working in some accounts, but works in others.

    60. Re: Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How did you tell he has a 5 digit uid? Open up his user page? That's a PITA. Perhaps they could show a person's uid on the page if this information is so important.

    61. Re:Seriously by KGIII · · Score: 1

      On very specific hardware, ME was excellent. I got one of the few computers that was "ME Ready." It was fantastic! It was stable. I used to get months of uptime with it - while it housed not only an OpenNap server but also housed an OpenNap hub. It was not unusual to see all five servers pushing over 100,000 connections between them and ME handled the hub part and ran my own server as well. It sat doing that for ages.

      Then, Vista was actually really good once SP1 came out. Prior to SP1 it kind of sucked. As I recall, it didn't even take long to get to SP1. I seem to recall it was okay prior to that, after a few updates, but it was pretty rough at first. I seem to recall that there were some speed issues, especially where disk input/output was concerned, and that was fixed up in fairly short order. I think people just didn't like things like user access control and a few other security features that were sorely needed. I stuck with it for quite a while - even when I had 7 available.

      7 was excellent. I wasn't fond of the user interface. I really didn't like the menu and any OS functionality seemed awkward. So, I spent more of my time just being content with Vista. 8 wasn't too bad, once tweaked. 8.1 was similar in those regards. I didn't prefer any of those so I stuck with Vista or, sometimes, 7.

      During that time, and since the mid-1990s, I'd had Linux installed on at least one partition. I just wasn't booting into it often enough to even call myself a Linux user. I'd used Unix back in the day and jumped on Linux pretty early but never really stayed with it much. I just kept using Windows as I'd switched to Windows back in 95 or so. (I'd not actually used any of the older stuff at that time - I have since.)

      However, I've now given up Windows computers entirely. Even though I'd "dual booted," I wasn't really dual booting. I was just booting into Windows and sticking with it - the vast majority of the time. I'd boot to Linux to update, maybe test something, and call it good.

      Really, I'd not much of a problem with Windows since the 98se era. I got along fine with ME, XP, Vista, 7, and 8. And though I didn't prefer the latter versions, I was able to use 'em just fine. I think a lot of the problems that people have actually stem from actions they themselves took.

      Which leads me to this...

      I noticed the description of this bug included it happening sporadically. I wonder how many of the people affected had done things like using all those varied scripts that are running around and purporting to shut off telemetry or other settings? I wonder how many of them have gone ahead and broken stuff on their own and that this update just compounded the issue, culminating with boot failure? Microsoft's kind of in a damned if you do and damned if you don't position and that's actually their own fault. They could go ahead and reset everyone's configuration prior to updating (and that might just resolve this sort of thing). If they do that, people get really mad. They don't know what changes people have made to their PCs, they turned off telemetry and blocked in their router.

      Hard telling, not knowing. It's still a bit curious. I somehow don't imagine that I'll be impacted by this update at all. I didn't stop using Windows because of any Windows hate. I stopped because I wasn't learning anything new and dual-booting was obviously not enough motivation to learn more. So, it's just Linux now.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    62. Re:Seriously by KGIII · · Score: 1

      > When I was an MIT student many, many years ago

      Eh? When was that?

      And, in case anyone is curious, I can confirm the part about the vacillation. As for the reasons why, I'm thinking that the excluded middle is just something that we do. The adage about the squeaky wheel getting the grease also ties in. To make an even broader, and more generalized statement, it is the zealots and extremists that get the most attention.

      The pendulum swings anew...

      Anyhow; Mens et Manus! There's a chance we know each other.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    63. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What they need to do is allow users to flag feedback as spam or unhelpful. It's way too hard to upvote good items because there's so much trash like people complaining about an app but literally only writing the app (e.g., misc problem with groove, all they submit is "groove" or "fix groove").

    64. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well it's more than one beta, there's two. I'd like to know how many people are actually on the slow ring, I feel like anyone wanting to be testing it just selects the fast ring thinking it's as safe as the slow or production ring.

    65. Re:Seriously by KGIII · · Score: 3, Informative

      Why do people keep repeating this nonsense? They did not lay off all their testers. Don't be daft and actually try to do some critical thinking on your own. They laid off (and gave lateral promotions) to a bunch of their testers because they were overlapping and creating more trouble than they were helping with. They still have a huge number of testers.

      Err... That doesn't mean they're *good* testers or anything like that. It just means that they've still got thousands of them - thousands. I have no idea why people keep making such silly claims. You're like the third person that I've seen make that claim in this one thread. I've corrected it enough times in the past so I skipped replying to them as I figured they were just stupid or trolls. At this point, I'm just curious as to why people don't actually bother to verify the things they read on Slashdot.

      If you believe everything you read on Slashdot, you're nothing short of a fucking idiot. Really, a fucking idiot. Slashdot is full of idiots - I know, I am one! Let's clear a few things up, shall we?

      Things we know to be true, or true with a reasonable level of confidence:

      Bill Gates does not eat human babies.
      RMS has taken a shower.
      Mozilla is not killing Thunderbird.
      The judge used the All Writs Act to issue the order to Apple, it is not a warrant.
      Copyright is not trademark.
      Trademarks are not patents.
      You can not get a copyright on your pet frog.
      Somalia is not a Libertarian Paradise.
      Democrats don't generally all want to put you in government housing, make you eat only certain foods, and take all of your money to give to the poor.
      Republicans don't actually want to issue babies with guns, give the government to the businesses, and aren't all religious folks.
      Some Muslims are terrorists.
      Some Muslims are not terrorists.
      Steve Jobs was not an alien.
      Elon Musk has an asshole - he probably won't let you do that to it.
      Libertarians are not generally anarchists, some are minarchists.
      If you say a fire department is socialist, you're stupid and adding nothing to the conversation.
      The moon is not made of green cheese, we know this because we've been there.
      There's no evidence to suggest that the editors will ever do a good job.
      IoT is possible to do in a sane way.
      Cloud computing is not new, novel, or always the best choice.
      You can actually see the source code for Windows if you want to jump through the hoops - it's free.
      Linux is awesome, even if you don't use it. So isn't OS X, so isn't Windows.
      It should be a surprise that it works as well as it does, not that it fails as often as it does.
      Chance are, most of us are not experts on any given subject so trying to authoritatively state facts, draw conclusions, or opine is just your ego - and probably wrong.
      Dogs are better than cats.
      Bicycles are not viable transportation for everybody.
      None of us have a clue what we're talking about - but we'll fight about it.
      Obama is an American.
      There were WMDs in Iraq, just not a whole bunch of them.
      You don't need a citation when someone says that gravity is just a theory.
      Elephants don't wear pajamas.
      Pointing out a spelling or grammar error does not mean you win an argument about which IDE is best.
      Security is a process, not an application.
      Nothing usable is ever completely secure.
      Firearms are inanimate objects, also that's probably a rifle and not a gun.
      When a privately owned site doesn't let you say what you want, that is not against the law.
      No, dogs really are objectively better than cats.
      The terms 'liberal,' 'SJW,' 'feminist,' 'fascist,' and more have lost their meaning. That's your fault.
      You're probably quoting Benjamin Franklin wrong. He probably wouldn't be spinning in his grave. He'd probably be shagging cute chicks and playing DOOM.
      Linus swears, a lot. If you're surprised by this, you're an idiot. If you're bothered by this, don't read/listen. Nobody asked your opinion.

      I can go on, boy can I go on...

      Anyhow, those are a few things that we know. One of the things we know, beyond reasonable doubt, is that Microsoft has not fired (or laid-off) all of their testers.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    66. Re: Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you a fucking retard? It's right fucking there.

    67. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it's means it is

      "This exact comment has already been posted. Try to be more original..."

      Well yes, but people keep making the exact same (grade-school level) mistake.

    68. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is Windows Insiders Program.

    69. Re: Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There were some windows 97 test builds and promotional materials, but early delays led to it being pushed back and became 98

    70. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does Hyper-V support graphics acceleration for Linux guests yet? That's the only thing keeping me in VMware.

    71. Re:Seriously by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Nothing further from the truth. Windows 8 might have been a fiasco, but it was not unreliable.

      I disagree. Windows 8 and Windows 10 have more in common with Windows ME than any other release. I haven't seen them just crash and bluescreen yet, but there's more about reliability than that, including features not suddenly not working. Here's a short list of problems on my surface:

      - Windows 8 suddenly stopped working with the touchscreen. Full refresh fixed the problem.
      - Windows 8.1 suddenly stopped working with the tuchscreen. Partial refresh fixed the problem.
      - Windows 8.1 suddenly dropped bluetooth support. Partial refresh fixed the problem.
      - Windows 10 perpetual update install. System start-up repair fixed the problem.
      - Windows 10 reboot loop. Started system start-up repair, which got caught in an start-up repair loop. Refused to do a refresh of the system. Download a new system image from Microsoft's website and spent the entire day reinstalling the entire OS.

      And that's only in the past year. Now when I think back to it Windows 7 has in the last 6 years bluescreened oncej and that's the only problem I had with it. The bluescreen was due to a failed fan. Zero issues. in 6 years I've never done a system restore, reinstall, never booted to safe mode, nothing.

      My experience with Windows 8 is not something I call "reliable". I mean telemetry aside I don't hate the OS, but I should not be having the problems I'm having.

    72. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While that sounds plausible, my experiences at MIT as a grad student (in the 90's) were that there were quite a few undergrads that were both. In other words really really smart but also well-rounded. I don't think they are mutually exclusive.

    73. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      from the OP
      " one user reports..."
      one user ?
      ONE USER ??????
      wtf, one user has problems and it is blamed on MS update wtf ?//

    74. Re:Seriously by iampiti · · Score: 1

      But Windows 10 was supposedly the "we listened to you" version. They added the start menu back, (Well, sort of: They added a version of the start menu that does fewer things than the old one) but they also added many things many people dislike, like the forced updates, the nagging the use Ms services, etc.
      To sum up, they're to deep in the "things I hate" pit I don't think they're ever coming back. We got to accept it, Ms have changed they strategy and they're not going back.

    75. Re:Seriously by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Actually with a start menu replacement WIndows 8.1 is a very fine desktop OS. If MS just included the old meny and left the full screen metro for tablets or those who click it to run their netflix on their desktop 8.1 would have been very very successful as many businesses who upgraded just last year would have deployed 8 instead of aging 7.

      Stardock had a $15 bundle that also includes modern mix to launch modern apps in a Windows and a start menu.

      Windows 8.1 has Hyper-V which supports Linux well and is better quality and cheaper than the now defuct VMWare Workstation type 2 hypervisor stack I used under 7. 8.1 has EFI and better wifi printing support and the ability to click on an iso for a virtual cdrom.

      Windows 10 is a clusterfuck and just well nothing. It has no QA and a mesh of things thrown together and is experimental.

      Actually, I tried Windows 8.1 w/ Classic Shell, and it was still unusable due to the Charms bar at the right: while typing word documents, if the cursor got near the east, the Charms bar would pop up, and there was NOTHING that the Classic shell could do about that. What you are describing is what they did w/ Windows 10. Incidentally, I use Classic Shell w/ Windows 10, since the Windows 10 menu doesn't allow a list wise pulldown menu. I've found Classic Shell to be a better foil for Windows 10 than even it was for Windows 8.1.

      I have a Windows 10 laptop where I have multiple accounts. In some of them, some things like the Windows Store has just disappeared, even though it's there on the others. If there was a way that I could run Pokki on Windows 10 and their app store, everything would be fine - I happen to prefer their apps to ones from the Windows app store.

    76. Re:Seriously by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Actually I hate Win 10 so much I would take Vista Sp1 over it!

      I am typing this comment on a Surface Pro 3. It had 8.1 originally on it but MS put 10 on it at their store when I needed a screen replaced. I am tempted to bring it back in and pay to go back to 8.1. Just 15 minutes ago I woke it up from sleep and it had nothing but a black screen. Had to hit control alt delete to see the login screen just as one example.

      I never had these problems with win8.1.

      That says a lot in my opinion as 8 is a very poorly regarded release. But if you have a tablet like me or need Hyper-V it is tollerable and has some benefits with a metro app and start menu replacement so it feels like a desktop. Frustrating as it also sips power and is lighter compared to 7 if you are stuck in win32 land

    77. Re:Seriously by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Does Hyper-V support graphics acceleration for Linux guests yet? That's the only thing keeping me in VMware.

      It does not but it is a type 1 hypervisor which means it talks directly to the hardware and has faster i/o. Example is my wifi printer was detected by my guests by default which was very cool and less buggy as no layers exist like a type 2 one.

      VMware Workstation is no longer developed either since Dell bought them out. Windows 10 redstone should (if they port server 2016) hyper-v will have nested vms which for me is the only reason I have a copy of vmware workstation left.

    78. Re:Seriously by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      You can disable charms. I did on my desktop. I just had very bad luck with bugs in Windows 10 and do not want to ever touch it again. But being in the technology field I am aware it is inevitable eventually.

      Wasn't poki spyware?

    79. Re:Seriously by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      So it's a bit like OPEC with the price of oil?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    80. Re:Seriously by MrKrillls · · Score: 1

      That's kind of what I've been wondering...has it all simply got away from them? Is it now to complex to manage?

      --
      Don't step on the baby.
    81. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then why did 8 -> 8.1 break the drivers of a pretty common realtek card on my laptop?

    82. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mostly they wanted to rely on their users to be a huge tester group. I mean, the idea is brilliant: You get a few MILLION testers, all with different hard- and software setups, all with setups that do not only reflect real life machines or are set up to be like real machines used by real people, but that ARE machines used by real people! And all of them have to be beta testers, willing or not, because they can't turn off getting any and all patches you crank out pushed on their machines. And should it actually work out, you can roll the patch out to the real customers, i.e. the companies paying for their OS.

      The only problem with this brilliant plan is what corporations usually and pretty much always ignore when they come up with such great plans: The human factor. In this case, that there are millions of people, some if not all of them also using Windows at work, getting a HUGELY negative impression by the OS and essentially thinking that it's the biggest pile of dog shit since Windows ME.

      Or at the very least Vista.

      Another thing MS obviously didn't take into account that some of those people who use computers at home might be the same people that decide when and what OS to buy next...

      In the Linux world, SUSE has Leap, with Tumbleweed as the experimental QA distribution. What succeeds in Tumbleweed will arrive in Leap.
      Red Hat has three levels --RH Linux, Centos and Fedora. What succeeds in Fedora may migrate up to RH, and down to Centos.
      Ubuntu is moving in the same way, Keep the main long Term Support system stable. and allow the QA to be done on the rest.

      But MS does not have a W10½ so, the W10 that corps need as stable is the one on which inadequate QA has been done.
      MS, Introduce a W10½

    83. Re:Seriously by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      There are still plenty being sold with Win 8.1 but if you get stuck with a Win 10? Here is what you do...

      Buy a copy of Win 8, you can buy a key for like $65 on amazon for Win 8. Install Win 8 on the system, 2.- Download and run driver booster to get all the correct drivers installed without issue, 3.- Go to the windows store and download the 8.1 update, then finally 4.- Install Classic Shell...tada! You have a Win 8.1 system that looks and behaves like Win 7 with a faster boot.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    84. Re:Seriously by gweihir · · Score: 1

      The available evidence seems to indicate that strongly. Also take into account how they are failing everywhere else, and they really, really will try very hard to make Win10 a success. If they still fail under those conditions, then they do not have the technological skills. Another indicator is how hard they push Win10 in not merit-based ways, see free upgrades, (almost) forced upgrades, etc. My take is they have lost mastery of their platform and know it, and hence they are running deeply scared now.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    85. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "One of the things we know, beyond reasonable doubt, is that Microsoft has not fired (or laid-off) all of their testers."

      Then why is Win10 so crap?

    86. Re:Seriously by orledrat · · Score: 1

      RMS has taken a shower. Mozilla is not killing Thunderbird. The judge used the All Writs Act to issue the order to Apple, it is not a warrant. Copyright is not trademark. Trademarks are not patents. You can not get a copyright on your pet frog.

      My pet frog got malignant copyright and died, you insensitive clod! :-(

      I toad them to go fr*g themselves but, man, lawyers don't ever listen do they? My little darling Zillsy just copped flies, she never copped any pleas.. why her!? Lord knows her spirit is set free now, right? It's what they claimed in the shop where I bought her, they even had a sign hanging on the door "Pet Heaven is OPEN"..

    87. Re:Seriously by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just recently? You mean there was a time when they didn't botch things?

  6. You get what you pay for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You get what you pay for

    1. Re:You get what you pay for by Chas · · Score: 0

      Thing is, even if you DID pay for Windows 10, it STILL comes with the Windows Updates compulsory malware delivery system.

      --


      Chas - The one, the only.
      THANK GOD!!!
    2. Re:You get what you pay for by gweihir · · Score: 1

      And that is one core reason I will not "upgrade" anytime soon. I would have absolutely no problem paying more for a "professional" edition, if that then actually is professional and gives me the control I can expect as a professional. But they do not offer that anymore. So I will stay on Win7 (pro) as my game-launcher and do all other work (except some MS office) on Linux as I have done for 20 years now.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  7. Left Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Never to return. Literally. I left the company in 2011. They were in utter turmoil and apparently still are. They missed the boat on mobile, ruined Nokia, produced a bad run of OSes, introduced privacy nightmares. Now, happy FreeBSD/OpenBSD user.

    1. Re:Left Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Abandoned windows at version 3.11. Laughed at the virus storms in the 90's and early 2000's. Have a better os, and a better word processor too.

    2. Re:Left Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft ruled the 1990's, buying out and/or knocking off competitor's innovations as fast as they came, but then the Internet moved forward and it turns out it wasn't about the web browser. Then came the mobile phone wave.

    3. Re:Left Microsoft by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Is there a Unix with R/W access to ext4 volumes? I haven't found one.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  8. This has become so common it isn't news anymore. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It really looks like MS needs to rethink the "You are going to take these updates no matter what" concept. I really feel for anybody that is running 10 and actually needs their computer to be reliable.
    First they trick millions of people into "upgrading", then they consistently break their computers. The only good thing I can say about Windows 10 at this point is that it has increased my income. I could, at this point, change my entire business model to reverting computers to prior versions of Windows. I spend most of my time doing that now.

  9. Testing would have helped by TroII · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, Satya, how's laying off your entire QA department working out for you?

    1. Re:Testing would have helped by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      What do you mean? The QA department is working great. The reports are coming in, didn't you read at least the headline, if not the article?

      They now have a few million testers. Unpaid, ok, and they failed to nail them with an NDA so word about the crappy product gets out, ok, but hey, you get what you pay for...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Testing would have helped by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "They now have a few million testers. Unpaid, ok, and they failed to nail them with an NDA so word about the crappy product gets out, ok, but hey, you get what you pay for..."

      The problem with unpaid beta testers, as video game industries should have realized, is that you get what you pay for.

    3. Re:Testing would have helped by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Apparently MS does not even have good lawyers anymore or they would not have messed up the NDA thing!

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    4. Re:Testing would have helped by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They didn't just lay off their QA testers (FTE's and Contingent Staff)...they outright replaced them throughout the Windows team.
      They brought in a shit-ton of H-1B workers from India through companies like Tata, Infosys, Wipro, and had them take over the jobs of the local Redmond workers, and off-shored the rest.
      Disney may be getting most of the attention on abusing the H-1B system, but this has been happening big time with Microsoft.
      This is also why I can never vote for Trump, since he no longer has a clear stance on this issue due to his newfound 'flexibility' in the H-1B issue in response to changing poll numbers.

    5. Re:Testing would have helped by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      It's hard to get people to agree to an NDA if you don't pay them.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    6. Re:Testing would have helped by unixisc · · Score: 1

      So in addition to QA people, they've been firing LAWYERS as well? At least something they're doing good.

    7. Re:Testing would have helped by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Tata, Infosys, Wipro are service companies - I've never heard of them writing actual SOFTWARE - like Office or Windows or things of that nature. They're nothing like a Microsoft or an Intuit.

      Trump's view on H1Bs is very specifically about the OPT category: the 1 year practical training that F1 visa students get after they graduate. The way it works is that they study in US universities, are allowed to work on that visa for a year, and after that, have to get an H1B, at which point, they are in line w/ the thousands of foreigners, who may be just cheap substitutes. Loosening H1B for them would let companies get people w/ the skills and qualifications, as opposed to just the cheap substitutes w/o the skills. And Trump's poll numbers have been very consistent - so he has no reason to shift his positions. He's just been finetuning it in some places - like making H1Bs easily accessible to OPT students, w/o opening the floodgates to the average guy in Bangalore or Suzhou whose employer wants to bring here.

    8. Re:Testing would have helped by gweihir · · Score: 1

      That is why you need good lawyers ;-)

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  10. Have they fixed any of the crap? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I switched to Linux in Windows 98 times already, but I'm curious to know how Windows is these days?

    These update problems make me guess that it's the same than before: blue screen twice a day, you have to restart computer even after changing a small setting, laggy and slow desktop, malware quickly conquers your computer, driver problems, reinstall of operating system every month?

    1. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      These update problems make me guess that it's the same than before: blue screen twice a day, you have to restart computer even after changing a small setting, laggy and slow desktop, malware quickly conquers your computer, driver problems, reinstall of operating system every month?

      I haven't seen any of those problems since Windows Vista came out. Of course, I take care of my Windows PCs with proper maintenance. Most people don't do any kind of maintenance, encounter all kinds of problems, and then blame Microsoft rather than take personal responsibility.

    2. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Nah, not really. It works, it even runs a few days. 'til the next patch, then it's pretty much flip a coin whether your system boots or whether you can hope your backups are current.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? by chuckugly · · Score: 1

      I've been an NT user since 3.51 (which was delivered on LOTS of 3.5" floppies) and I've had no major issues. I don't install special viewers for naked pictures on Anna nor do I click there for cute kitty pictures. I just use the thing for work and games. Windows 8 was a little lame, 8.1 is great, 10 is also fine. But then I had no issues with Vista or 7 (or XP or 2K) either. Some people could break an anvil. In fairness I was literally never a Windows 9x user, so I think I missed some opportunities for failure there.

    4. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      These update problems make me guess that it's the same than before: blue screen twice a day, you have to restart computer even after changing a small setting, laggy and slow desktop, malware quickly conquers your computer, driver problems, reinstall of operating system every month?

      I haven't seen any of those problems since Windows Vista came out. Of course, I take care of my Windows PCs with proper maintenance. Most people don't do any kind of maintenance, encounter all kinds of problems, and then blame Microsoft rather than take personal responsibility.

      Dude last weekend I installed fresh WIndows 10 FRESH out of the box after I cleaned the disk with partedcd. I used the latest Windows 10 image from Microsoft's website witht he media creation tool which was Novembers release update 1. FROM MICROSOFT.

      Guess what? Windows update failed immediately?! sfc /scannow and dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth all reported corruption! Now explain how this is possible and my fault?

      Windows 10 is the worst OS ever. Vista didn't have these problems.

    5. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Now explain how this is possible and my fault?

      A fresh install of Windows is not the same as letting it run for a while without any maintenance. I've been known to screw the pooch on a fresh install, especially if the hardware was newer than the OS. Sounds like you have a bad hard drive.

    6. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? by HiThere · · Score: 1

      What you suggest *may* be reasonable for an IT professional. It's not reasonable for any other group. And I'm not sure it's reasonable for an IT professional...certainly not something that time consuming.

      E.g., I know I should read my logs, but I also know I don't. I run Linux on which I generally trust my backups. And I run system update twice a day, which usually takes 10 minutes, but doesn't require exclusive access. Well, it's my personal computer, and I will periodically install an new version of the OS as a fresh install...say once every year or so. At that time I switch disk partitions so the old version is still bootable, but the one before that gets overwritten. Not really best practice, but good enough and easy.

      The thing is, my process takes a LOT less time than the processes I used on MSWind, and I don't have the hideous overhead of a background virus checker. You didn't define "proper maintenance", so I'm guessing that it's as time consuming as the things I used to have to do. I.e., a lot more time for results that aren't as good. But this is a guess.

      However, notice that I was talking about the process that's reasonable for an IT professional. My wife, on Kubuntu, won't even run updates. I go to her computer every once in awhile and update it. This doesn't happen as often as it should, but hasn't yet caused a problem. And expecting her to do her own maintenance is unreasonable. There are many working in almost all offices for which this is true. So it has to be trivially easy and safe. That means Long Term Support releases only, and those installed only months to years after being released.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    7. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? by HiThere · · Score: 1

      And there we have one of the problems. Technically knowledgeable people don't run into the problems that many users do. But to require all users to be technically knowledgeable is totally unreasonable given the way computers are marketed.

      In all the time I used MSWind I never caught a virus, either. But lots of people did and still do.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    8. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      What you suggest *may* be reasonable for an IT professional.

      My solution as an I.T. professional is to reimage the computer.

      It's not reasonable for any other group.

      Running the disk defragger and anti-virus scanner each month is asking too much.

    9. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I will periodically install an new version of the OS as a fresh install...say once every year or so. At that time I switch disk partitions so the old version is still bootable, but the one before that gets overwritten.

      You don't use a modern OS that supports a FS with bootable snapshots?

    10. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Real geeks won't do Win OS maintenance manually. Geeks will just code their own .bat scripts or .vbs scripts to do the cleaning and to do the backups. Seriously, just write your code batch script to clean all your Temp/Tmp folders and clean all types of super cookies planted by all of your 5 browsers.

    11. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lol, you think you have a wife you fat sexless loser pig in mom's basement.

    12. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? by unixisc · · Score: 1

      In Windows 10, they run automatically. Problem is that the code Microsoft's servers put out for those forced updates is bug ridden

    13. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Re-imaging is a horrible solution unless you store the user files on a separate partition, or separate disk, from system files. And if executables can be run from the user partition that's not an answer unless the system protects system partitions from being modified.

      I totally forgot about disk defraggers. That they should still be needed is wierd, as automated defraggers were being advertised in 1998. And if the system is so improved that you only need to run anti-virus once a month I'm surprised. Granted I don't run an anti-virus, but I also run on Linux where the system files are password write protected...and I feel lazy because I don't set the partition to be read only. When I left MSWind it was important to have a virus scanner running in the background at all times, and regularly updated.

      If that's what you mean by maintenance, then it's reasonable for most users, but some will require consistent reminding and still won't understand why. And it's unreasonable to expect them to. A computer for non-IT users should be as easy and maintenance free as a smart-phone.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    14. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? by HiThere · · Score: 1

      I could use "bootable snapshots" (I'm guessing you mean "live CDs", or possibly USBsticks). I don't. I want to clean out unused programs that I've installed over the last year, etc. Occasionally I also rebuild my user profile from scratch, because unused things accumulate.

      Automated tools never make all the right decisions. Expecting them to do so without huge strings of question/answer interactions is unreasonable, and nobody builds something that annoying to use. So it's better to do a clean install. (As I save the 1-back system image nothing gets lost until the next install.) And I've also got a few full backups including system files in bootable format, if I ever need to use that. But so far I never have. (I don't save these forever, a couple of years is generally tops.)

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    15. Re:Have they fixed any of the crap? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Re-imaging is a horrible solution unless you store the user files on a separate partition, or separate disk, from system files.

      In most corporate environments, the user profile is stored on the network. As long as the user doesn't store data outside the profile (C:\ is a favorite spot) and don't have too many special applications, re-imaging is a fairly straight forward process.

      A computer for non-IT users should be as easy and maintenance free as a smart-phone.

      My father's solution was to buy a new $500 Dell box every other year when his computer slows down from all the naughty bits he looks at. I take his old Dell boxes home and use them for another five years before I recycle them.

  11. Third-party programs by jenningsthecat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When you have to resort to third-party programs to restore and control basic OS functionality, and to stop your own computer from spying on you, then said OS has truly and irrevocably jumped the shark. It's time to bury Windows in a deep, dark hole, remember it for all the good stuff it brought to computing, try to forget about all the shit it foisted upon unsuspecting users, and move on to a less self-serving and traitorous alternative. Die, Microsoft - just die. Please.

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    1. Re:Third-party programs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What kind of third party programs?

    2. Re:Third-party programs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The summary mentions "W10Privacy 2".

    3. Re:Third-party programs by ZipK · · Score: 1

      The summary mentions "W10Privacy 2".

      Which provides you visibility and control over Microsoft's spyware and forced updates that Microsoft doesn't provide natively.

    4. Re:Third-party programs by DogDude · · Score: 0

      It's time to bury Windows in a deep, dark hole, remember it for all the good stuff it brought to computing, try to forget about all the shit it foisted upon unsuspecting users, and move on to a less self-serving and traitorous alternative.

      What's the alternative?

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    5. Re:Third-party programs by Teun · · Score: 1

      Another one that also works in Win7 where some of this crap was back ported to is Spybot Ant-Beacon.
      Possibly not quite as transparent.

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    6. Re:Third-party programs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He doesn't have one. He's just a troll exploiting the fact that any post pissing on Microsoft Windows will get rated +5. Kinda like Trump.

    7. Re:Third-party programs by jenningsthecat · · Score: 1

      It's time to bury Windows in a deep, dark hole, remember it for all the good stuff it brought to computing, try to forget about all the shit it foisted upon unsuspecting users, and move on to a less self-serving and traitorous alternative. What's the alternative?

      Admittedly, that's a big problem. I use Xubuntu, but I realize there are lots of mission-critical applications for which there is no Linux alternative. One reason for that is that so many people simply don't understand or don't care about Microsoft shenanigans. If a majority of the people who use MS Office could be persuaded that Libre Office will do everything they need, for zero cost other than a relatively minor learning curve, that would be a good start. But then there are things like Photoshop, professional CAD programs, etc, that require Windows. But if enough people rejected Microsoft by using an alternative office suite, that might catch the attention of heavy-hitting software vendors. Then again, that kind of attention might just hasten the embracing, extending, and ultimate extinction of Linux...

      Anyway, we probably won't get rid of Windows or its (probably equally abusive) successor, for the same reason we won't get rid of our various badly broken governments, electoral systems, corporatocracies, economies, etc. Inertia, apathy, and fear of the unknown are powerful forces. But it's nice to dream that we might collectively get beyond that, and a necessary early step is pointing how bad things currently are, and why.

      --
      'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    8. Re:Third-party programs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's the alternative?

      Everything's in the browser today, and flash is dying. That basically means free choice, as long as a recent browser is available. This includes everything from OS/2 to MacOs, Linux and FreeBSD. Probably, BeOS, AmigaOS, ...

    9. Re:Third-party programs by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      It's time to bury Windows in a deep, dark hole, remember it for all the good stuff it brought to computing

      Ah! I remember the moment in the late 1990s when I buried Windows in a deep dark hole, and all the good stuff that moment brought to my computing.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    10. Re:Third-party programs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've personally been using O&O ShutUp10 since Windows 10 release. Seems to do the job, though like most of these 3rd party programs, the source code is not available nor the binary verifiable, and this particular program needs to be run as Admin to change many settings.

    11. Re:Third-party programs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Deamon Tools
      Ultramon
      f.lux
      ShareX
      Everything (voidtools.com)
      ObjectDock

      The various security tools required including Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro.

  12. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is exactly why software-as-a-service is a bad idea. Being forced to always update to the latest version, whether you like it or not, only works if the latest version is actually better. Which is very rarely the case these days.

  13. I'm so glad I didn't upgrade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'm so glad I didn't upgrade to Windows 10 from Win7. What a disaster.

    1. Re:I'm so glad I didn't upgrade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yet.
          I'm sure MS will find ways to get you into the Windows 10 Borg.

      While you are running Windows you have not truly escaped the collective.

    2. Re:I'm so glad I didn't upgrade by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I'm currently trying hard to find an upgrade to Win7 for my laptop that came with Win10 preinstalled.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:I'm so glad I didn't upgrade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you should have been more careful buying the new laptop to begin with.. it is entirely possible to buy a new laptop (or desktop for that matter) with windows 8.1 pro license, factory downgraded to windows 7 pro. from there you clone the hard drive and upgrade that clone to windows 10 with the original drive disconnected. boom. pow. now you have the originally loaded windows 7 pro on the original drive, the media that came with the pc for windows 8.1 pro, and if you ever need or want it later, a reserved windows 10 pro upgrade.

    4. Re:I'm so glad I didn't upgrade by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      Here is how you do it....1.- Install Win 7, be it Home or Pro (although personally I'm recommending 8 right now, you can get a copy REAL cheap and with 8.1 and Classic Shell its a solid OS) and when you get to the desktop 2.- Install Driver Booster and let it find drivers for your hardware.

      This takes care of the "Crap I can't find a single driver for X" issue as it looks at the hardware ID and you can bet your bottom dollar that some OEM already has a Win 7 driver for X, or the manufacturer has a driver for X on their website. DB will handle that, just check the "reboot automatically" and let her rip...HTH.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  14. I thought it was bad I had to use classic shell by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 2

    On Windows 10 because one of their updates broke the start menu and all universal apps like edge and calculator. (No, sfc /scannow didn't fix it and DISM didn't either.) I'm just glad my main partition is Win 8.1 (with classic shell) because at least that one works. (I was thinking of a reinstall of my win10 partition but I guess I'll wait until Windows 10 gets out of alpha.)

    --
    Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
    1. Re:I thought it was bad I had to use classic shell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It never occurs to some people that adding all that horseshit (Classic Shell, what could possibly go wrong) is probably why their installation is flaky.

    2. Re:I thought it was bad I had to use classic shell by Kryptonut · · Score: 1

      I had a similar issue.

      I ended up having to create another account with admin rights on the machine and delete my profile (after grabbing all my files and putting them somewhere safe)

      The next time I logged on, a new profile was created. Copied my files back over, deleted the temporary admin account and everything was working again fine.

    3. Re:I thought it was bad I had to use classic shell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had this happen to me as well -- suddenly right clicking on an item on the taskbar would give me "There was a critical error and we'll fix it the next time you log in: or somesuch.

      To fix it I ran

      Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”}

      in Powershell.

    4. Re:I thought it was bad I had to use classic shell by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 1

      You're right about that. I've checked the other accounts on that machine and those ones work correctly. I've been tempted to do what you've described but I'm worried MS still has that nonsense that the first account you create on a Windows system is "special" and effectively a super-admin. (I'm not sure if they've straightened it out with Win10 that there is no such thing as the first time is special.)

      --
      Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
    5. Re:I thought it was bad I had to use classic shell by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 1

      Tried that as well but I get loads of errors even if I run powershell as an admin. I did see some info that said it was permissions with the registry issue that caused those errors but when I checked regedit all the permissions for "all application packages" were set for read where it needed to be.

      --
      Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
  15. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by mlts · · Score: 2

    It would be nice, with all that telemetry data being collected, shouldn't MS be able to find broken patches on a mass scale, realize something is wrong, and do something about it a lot more quickly.

  16. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Breakage is not that common as you think. Always take the dark picture of Windows painted by open source fans with a grain of salt. Windows 10 is still an extremely stable operating system. Gobs of more stable than Linux.

  17. The first rule of holes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The first rule of holes - When you're in one and you need to get out STOP DIGGING.

    1. Re:The first rule of holes by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Unless you see MS sitting in a hole. Then the rule is START SHOVELING!

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:The first rule of holes by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      Then I order cement.

    3. Re: The first rule of holes by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      Cement?! You drop in a *fucking grenade*

  18. No way! by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

    The recently-released cumulative update for Windows 10 (KB3140743) is reportedly causing problems.

    No way, I simply cannot believe such a thing. That's unpossible!

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  19. Appy apps! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Modern app appers know that ONLY apps can app apps, so this is just Microsoft scrubbing the appy app of LUDDITE software!

    Apps!

  20. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by BlackPignouf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I was at a conference last year : an important speaker was scheduled to be the first one of the day.
    He comes to the stage with his laptop (Windows 7), starts it up, and screams in disgust at the screen "Please do not power off your machine. Installing updates 1 from bazillion". He didn't have any copy of his powerpoint on a flash drive, and we didn't have Internet access.
    No biggie, he switched place with the 2nd speaker. After the presentation, the update process still wasn't finished. Then came the 3rd speaker. After almost an hour, the speaker told us "Shoot, I should've hold the presentation without my laptop, now I've got a plane to catch. Well, see you next year!"

  21. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Breakage is not that common as you think. Always take the dark picture of Windows painted by open source fans with a grain of salt. Windows 10 is still an extremely stable operating system.

    If by "stable" you mean "doesn't crash in a fiery ball of death", then you are correct.

    However, stable and usable are not the same thing. Windows 10 is buggy and not getting any better.

  22. Mandatory updates. YAY! by Chas · · Score: 3, Insightful

    THIS is why Windows Updates NEEDS to be under end-user control.

    Because with mandatory updates, like this one, killing systems, Windows Updates becomes the world's first compulsory malware delivery system.

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  23. Why W10 is so slow? by Max_W · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It is slow on all three PCs which I have got. Is it because it is more secure and checking everything while operating?

    But I do not get it completely, - isn't it supposed to be faster than previous versions? Maybe something wrong with my setups (which are quite standard)? What can I do to make the W10 run faster?

    1. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by CrashNBrn · · Score: 2

      Search Service Indexing is one. Compared to Win 7, win 8/10 are dogshit slow (with any search). Win 8 (and possibly 10) are constantly reading and writing to the harddisk. The number of active services and running processes is off the hook.
      Win 10 is still stuck in ugly pastel metroland, and does not look like we'll ever see Aero come back with a decent customizable working environment.

    2. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by CrashNBrn · · Score: 1

      One of my biggest annoyances are the absolute uselessness of symlinks. Any time you try to create one you have to escalate privileges - even when both the target and the symlink are not in protected directories.

    3. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1, Troll

      Windows 10 is fast on everything I've put it on, and that is a lot more than three machines.

      Without physically being there, it is almost impossible to help you.

      Side note: The "oldest" machine I've installed Windows 10 on is a Core2Quad Q6600 2.4GHz machine that is now 9 years old, it has 4GB of DDR2 RAM and a 80GB Intel G2 SSD, and it is amazingly fast for its age. Oh sure it isn't nearly as fast as modern machines, but if you're checking e-mail, facebook, or playing light games, it frankly is pretty snappy.

      Windows 10 is the best release since 7, and before that, XP. Loving it every day, no regrets...

    4. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try Linux Mint. Seriously. I'm a long W user, but only keep it in VirtualBox VM now (free of charge).

    5. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      B-b-but the datamining and telemetry! It spies everything that I do on my computer! Ain't you not worried?

    6. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's not slow. Your connection to the Internet is slow and it's having a hard time sending everything you do to Microsoft.

    7. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck off Microsoft shill!!

      FlyHelicopters is a well known MS shill and should be ignored.

    8. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have an Intel Atom board that ran Windows 7 just fine. All I used it for was MS Word 2011 for writing collaborative papers, and it was plenty fast. Upgrade to 11, and it is impossible to do anything. ANYTHING. Click on MS Word? At least 10 minutes before anything will show up. Want to actually edit a document? Too bad. Its completely unusable.

      Now I know that an old Atom is going to be slow, but there is a clear difference in performance without anything else changing.

    9. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Step 1. Disable all Windows search.

      Step 2. Install "Agent Ransack". Stupid name. Awesome program. http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/.

      Step 3. Pick your jaw up from the flaw once you realise how fucking fast a search program on Windows can run. Also enjoy "normal" and consistent search behavior, search by name, content, date and type using a sane and consistent interface. The Windows search "tag" system is painful and I always used to forget them, making the search feature useless.

      Step 4. Turn on the shell integration that brings up Agent Ransack when you press F3.

      Step 5. Lament the way the old Windows search still pops up when you are in a "library" or on the desktop. :(

    10. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      did you check the process list for anything that eats cycles?

    11. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    12. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Yeah. KDE has that problem, too, or it did the last time I installed it. I don't know the MSWind solution, but for KDE I turned off desktop search, and then installed Baloo which I restricted to indexing certain directories. That fixed the problem. Presumably something similar can be done in MSWind.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    13. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't have an SSD would be my guess. Win10 is a fucking I/O hog. There are SO many read/write call for the simplest of things that unless you have the IOPS that SSDs provide...It will act quite slow...

      I have a 6 year old machine(Phenom2 3.6Ghz 4G RAM) with an SSD(SATA2 port) and it is good on speed. My mom's 2 year old (i7 4770 3.5Ghz with 16G RAM) has a spinning drive(SATA3 port) and is quite slow compared to the 6 year old machine...HDD light just stays on for quite a while after startup and has sporatic heavy I/O operations at random times out of the blue. The SSD machine has the same but not for near as long and doesn't seem to slow down the computer near as bad.

      And before you ask (Your mom has what?? Why does she need that kind of computer power??), it is because of Second Life. That program is horribly unoptimized and needs a lot of power to be smooth for most things. She has a AMD 7870 graphics card to go with it too...and she uses most of that system's power when running Second LIfe. Good grief it is a resource hog!! And BTW...we are just waiting on her SSD to come in at this point. She is tired of the machine being slow BEFORE she even starts to use it. While using it (Second Life)....She is ok until hit hits the HDD, when it does....LAGGGGGGGG

    14. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      I find this very hard to believe. Vista didn't have the problems 10 has. I tried 4 times to upgrade and this weekend just said fuck it and join the XP luddities who never upgrade.

      I do not want to be an old man afraid of change and I am not a Linux user either who fears non FOSS.

      My experience is Windows update does not even work out of the box on a fresh install from last weekend using Microsoft's own media creator program! SFC /scannow and DISM reported corruption beyond repair. No my hardware is fine as I am installing Windows 8.1 on the system today and it works beautifully.

      The 1st time my user name was cut at c:\users\ti and it stayed that way this time around. The other time last fall I tried to do an upgrade my start menu was empty?? This time around when I tried to install Chrome and Office it won't not go to my taskbar. I checked my event viewer and found 50 errors with my apps.

      It is still alpha quality and go research reddit and you see the 10 haters. Shitty OS

    15. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      I find this very hard to believe.

      What, you think that somehow hundreds of millions of PCs are now running and somehow having your problems?

      That would be front page news on CNN.

      No, sorry, the problem is on your end somewhere.

      My experience is Windows update does not even work out of the box on a fresh install from last weekend using Microsoft's own media creator program!

      Then you have hardware problems, because that is not normal. I've installed Windows 10 on a lot of machines, Windows update runs on them all.

    16. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      B-b-but the datamining and telemetry! It spies everything that I do on my computer! Ain't you not worried?

      Nope, honestly I'm not.

    17. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another one which is good and free is Everything - http://voidtools.com/

    18. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Generally Windows 10 runs pretty fast. Have you tried turning off Windows hints? That has caused some people issues.

      Also, are you using OEM installed copies of Windows 10? They tend to be filled with junk running in the background which you may wish to uninstall (nothing to do with Microsoft in that case, everything to do with shitty OEM software).

    19. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      PS: Sorry, *floor. Thanks for the recommendation on "Everything". Looks very nice.

    20. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I even lost my (temporary) job because Windows 10 was slow. I was out of the Windows world since Windows XP. I was hired to help the local developer team to rewrite Linux software to .NET. I don't know why they decided to move from a well working system to a completely new Microsoft only system, but it was just work. I got a laptop with the wonderful Windows 10. Every single day it took 20 minutes to become responsive after logging in. After that 20 minutes, the hard disk would be rattling at a constant 99% of the available resources for another 1.5 hour. This was almost 2 hours massive slow downs. I couldn't even start that wonderful piece of development tool called Visual Studio in those 2 hours. I've made tickets, begged the local help desk, complained to all layers in that company to give me a computer where I could be productive or at least allow me to use my own computer. If I wanted to steal their software I could easily do it on their laptop too since it had internet connection.
       
      Well that last thing is what they didn't like to hear and they told me to not come back. That's was actually their intention to secure their code, because they didn't trust me enough. A laptop from their company so I wouldn't take their code with me, while completely ignoring the fact that they gave me even network administrator rights (just like any other developer) and the password of the single version control account that was accessible from the internet. I also had to inform them that their code was available for everybody on the internet and didn't need a password to download. Their only response was, "how is that possible", so I had to give them an introductory course to
      bitbucket (of course they used a free account version).
       
      1.5 week of pure frustration and they never even paid me. Thanks Microsoft and companies that blindly rely on Microsoft.
       
      Also thank me to accept this small job so I know to never accept any job that requires me to use Windows anymore. This was just a small project with a small IT providing company who lured away customers from 'ancients' in the sector. What I didn't understand is how a new kid on the block fully embraced Windows and convinced their new customers to rewrite non broken software. The sales guy was always babbling about 'modern' this, 'old fashioned' that. Postgres was 'old fashioned', MS SQL was 'modern'. What a technical insight. I wonder if most Microsoft only shops are like that, just a bunch of Windows fanboys with MCSE-degrees or whatever it is called.

    21. Re:Why W10 is so slow? by CrashNBrn · · Score: 1

      Step 6: Lament the way you can't flatten folders in a Library.

  24. Recovery ISO by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

    All these people who just allowed the free upgrade - none of them would have a recovery ISO, right? Is it downloadable if they even have a burner or know how to make a bootable USB drive?

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    1. Re:Recovery ISO by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      Anyone can download Windows 10 to a CD ISO image, or a bootable USB Flash Drive.

      While most people won't do this, frankly they should. If you are not prepared for a computer that won't boot, then you can't complain if you have no solution when it won't boot.

      People don't want to take any responsibility anymore, then blame everyone else when they have problems.

    2. Re:Recovery ISO by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      With modern UEFI it will install the OS and the previous in the recovery partition specified in the IEEE standards. Under PC settings you can go into recovery and put WIndows 8.1 or 10 back on with a clean wipe

    3. Re:Recovery ISO by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Last weekend I used the ms media creator tool free from their website to make a USB image. Still too buggy and update was corrupted immediately after installation. Wow

    4. Re:Recovery ISO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, it's directly linked to on the pop up when you choose to move to the beta (slow/fast ring).

    5. Re:Recovery ISO by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      Then you have a hardware problem, either with your USB stick or your computer.

      Or a virus perhaps.

    6. Re:Recovery ISO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the average "home" user knows, of course, that they need a ISO file in case something happens?
      And they also know how to preserve their data in case a re-install is needed, or even know how to do a re-install?

      Yeah.. Sure... No problem at all, hmm?

    7. Re:Recovery ISO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows 10 is incredibly easy to crate a recovery ISO, either from the PC itself (literally "create a recovery" after pressing windows key) or by downloading it for free using the Microsoft media creation tool, which can be done on any PC. With the upgraded version you do not have to worry about keys, all you need is an internet connection to activate.

      Windows 10 is by far the easiest Windows OS in a long while to reinstall.

    8. Re:Recovery ISO by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Nope 8.1 works just fine. Seriously the image from MS had an outdated database for dism/sfc or it came with that bug. It makes it useless for a corporate setting as IT professionals use those to repair corrupted pcs.

      It is not hardware. Odd the intel Media Interface driver which update reported failed actually mentioned it started in event viewer?? So WTF pc settings can't even kniow what is installed and which isn't.

    9. Re:Recovery ISO by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      Something is broken on your end. A hundred million computers are running Windows 10, I have more than a dozen in my office, some clean install, some upgrades, all work perfectly...

      Windows 10 isn't broken...

  25. Stand up! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At what point do you just put your foot down and just say what you all are thinking?

    This is MY computer and I will not accept forced TAMPERING with my system. Until I can sue them for destroying an important computer, I have no interest in any "updates".

    Anyone remember updating computers without the internet using "update disks"? We need to get back to that now that they are simply moving too fast and trashing our systems with untested garbage.

    Not everyone bought a computer to be bleeding edge. Some of us bought them for doing subversive things like engineering homebrew crypto or developing brand new personal privacy protecting software. We need them to work for life and death. Telling me to "just back it up" is retarded since that is downtime and I shouldn't have to have any downtime PERIOD.

    When can you wusses put your foot down and help bring a mentality like mine back to the mainstream? I'm tired of having to argue all these points and wish you would all help educate common-folk you know about these issues. Stand the fuck up for yourself.

    1. Re:Stand up! by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 2

      When can you wusses put your foot down and help bring a mentality like mine back to the mainstream? I'm tired of having to argue all these points and wish you would all help educate common-folk you know about these issues. Stand the fuck up for yourself.

      Well, never, since I disagree with you...

      For whatever faults are with the current system, it does beat the crap out of the older system where a hundred million machines were botted due to a complete lack of Windows Updates.

      People simply didn't update their computers, it was a mess.

      This solution isn't perfect, but it is a step in the right direction.

      Telling me to "just back it up" is retarded since that is downtime

      Backing up is downtime? If backing up takes you time, you're doing it wrong. In any case, you should always have a backup of your data, if you don't, you have no one but you to blame for losing it.

      Anyone remember updating computers without the internet using "update disks"? We need to get back to that now

      Yea, how about no... heck no...

    2. Re: Stand up! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only in windows are regular backups mandatory. Why? Shit happens and as a new windows user (circa late win98) I probably reinstalled at least ten times in the course of the 1st year in the process of exploring. I'm much more windows savvy now and do it because windows will still at times refuse to boot. Reinstalling is nbd. Getting everything back to your personal tastes is the bitch. If in someone's wet dream windows was again under user control and not coming from some gay ass metro wannabe phone telemetry shove this update down your throat stance, I'd happily upgrade from 7 to 10. But that is not going to happen and you know it won't.
      Linux needs no mandatory backup scheme as it is 100x more stabile. As far as I'm concerned, windows pc's should never ship without a secondary backup drive, tablets and laptops incl. Of course this is from your average user and not some bus owner or developer. As far as "speed!", 7 on my 7850k @4.5GHz with an 840 evo is plenty fast. Wankers who have speed problems need to take freakin control more than ever and sadly 10 does not do it for me. If it works for you and you like it that's great.

    3. Re:Stand up! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck off Microsoft shill!!!

    4. Re: Stand up! by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Linux is not some magic sauce that makes your hardware invulnerable.

      Smart users and IT people who want to keep their jobs—these folks take backups.

      Stupid users and IT people who don't care about where their house payment will come from—these folks don't.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    5. Re: Stand up! by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

      Only in windows are regular backups mandatory.

      So somehow a computer running Linux will never have hardware failure, never be stolen, and never have a user that deletes a file by mistake and doesn't notice right away?

    6. Re:Stand up! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck off Microsoft shill.

  26. Can't be the case... by Junta · · Score: 1

    Software developers assure me that CI and unit tests make software quality perfect, and bugs aren't possible anymore.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    1. Re:Can't be the case... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That all depends on what the unit tests and integration tests are actually testing. In the majority of shops, tests are written afterwards and mostly done as a checklist item.

      In the better run shops, using TDD (test driven development) in a sensible way, you don't just make changes willy-nilly to the code. Instead, you define what you're going to do (new functionality), then write a small unit test that will fail. Write the minimum code to get that new test to pass. Figure out what the next least complex thing is to implement in your feature and repeat the process.

      TDD is not easy. But when used wisely it lets you know when to stop coding because your new feature has tests that pass, and you haven't broken any existing features (whose tests still pass). It stops developers from making the "stupid" errors that break things. Most of our issues at my current shop are deployment problems, where QA is differently slightly from the development environment. That's a process issue and an ongoing battle to make it better.

  27. Cumulative updates by jones_supa · · Score: 1

    It's interesting how cumulative updates have taken a big role in Windows 10. Large packs of updates that service many things. Also it's supposed to make upgrading a fresh OS installation a bit more convenient.

    If you want to take a look under the hood, Microsoft provides a list of files (CSV) that KB3140743 patches.

  28. Is anyone expecting Windows to improve? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Seriously? Does anyone actually expect Windows to:

    - Improve its security? (Check the record of history.)
    - Reduce its phoning home? (Check its steady increase.)
    - Break its co-dependence with the US government (j/k)
    - Start supporting end users, instead of content creators?
    - Start focusing on user privacy? (Zero precedent for it.)
    - Stop changing UI with each release? ("MS knows best.")

    The list of reasons why using Windows is a bad idea is enormous, and only growing. There is not the slightest likelihood that anything will ever improve for end users, because that simply isn't Microsoft's focus. Its requirements are set by entirely different needs, the great majority of them being diametrically opposed to end-user needs.

    As you have probably guessed by now, I am going to suggest that everyone, and I mean everyone, move to open source operating systems. Yes I know, they have problems of their own (lots of them!), but those problems are solvable given enough user pressure. The problems of Windows are not solvable, ever, because MS is not on your side.

  29. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That is the speaker's fault. He had updates scheduled and when he shut his machine down, he left it in a state of "partly updated" so that it finished updating when it was turned on.

    It also sounds like he has a REALLY crappy laptop with a slow HDD, which he shouldn't if he is a "really important speaker".

    Frankly, the speaker was unprepared. This is not Windows' fault, this is his.

  30. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by dcollins · · Score: 4, Funny

    I suppose the telemetry can't run if the machine is unbootable.

    --
    We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
  31. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Phesh! You only need to look at ROI to say yes. Your competitors are already on board with us, so it's your choice to miss the boat!

    You have 5 minutes to decide, moron.

  32. And wireless STILL won't work! by sizzzzlerz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    At least I had a stable wireless connection with 8.1. When I installed 10, it worked for awhile, but after several updates, it stopped working. A reboot would restore it for a short time then it crapped out. I had hoped the new version would fix it but, if anything, it made it worse to the point where I have to operate with a cable if I want to connect. In addition, they still didn't fix the problem where my custom mouse profile won't load automatically at boot time. Every boot, I have to go to the mouse settings panel and manually select my custom profile. Every fucking time.

    Damn, I miss XP

    1. Re:And wireless STILL won't work! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Damn, I miss XP

      Go to Hell and use a wireless chipset that isn't shit! I work in China and we still have XP machines that I'm forced to use. No window snapping, ugly as fuck, no desktop compositor, and every now and then the whole fucking desktop disappears due to an EXPLORER.EXE crash. A classic XP fuckup. You love XP? Better get checked for developing symptoms of Down's Syndrome.

    2. Re:And wireless STILL won't work! by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Just put 8.1 back on? I did. I will wait this one out after redstone sometime late next year when bugs are worked out

  33. Re:Mandatory updates. YAY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some misguided manager probably thought that removing the safety net from users' hands would motivate the engineers to produce 100% correct updates.

  34. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    or that isn't what the telemetry is for

  35. BIOS updates next by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't worry, Microsoft will update your BIOS next!

    I can see nothing wrong with this.

    Enjoy your new brick.

    I'm sure you can take it into the Microsoft store, and get a 12.99 discount on a new computer running Windows 10 as compensation.

  36. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It may not be Windows Fault, But I assure you, I can do almost whatever with my Linux laptop while it transparently updates itself. IT'S Microsoft fault to be years behind a FREE OPEN SOURCE OS on a basic functionality Like automatic updating.

  37. It got me by Snotnose · · Score: 2

    Thursday afternoon my network went away. Farted around with it, then it spontaneously rebooted. When it came back up it gave the infamous "installing updates, please wait". Did another reboot or two, 20 minutes later I was back in business.

    It farked some of my chrome settings, and went back to Edge for PDF viewing. Other than that haven't noticed any other problems.

    To be honest, I wish I'd never "upgraded" to Win10. It's prolly the biggest pain in the ass I've ever run. Nothing major, except for the "I'll reboot when I want to, sod off", but lots of little problems.

  38. THe firefox of operating systems by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2

    Notice how Chrome gets updated all the time and no one complains. Actually, has a bad chrome udpate ever and I mean ever broke any plugins?

    There is no QA since MS laid off the team and the OS is not modular enough to handle all these updates without breaking something. Major changes shouldn't be happening so quick and Windows update is the worst offender. FYI I am now talking about it not working on a fresh install!!? Not an update breaking something after a few months of use.

    I support users so this means I have to know and use this POS day in and out. Folks 2016 is well under way and Windows 7 EOL is coming for me professionally at work. It is Jan 2020 so this means by 2019 in just 3 short years Windows 7 needs to go bye bye and meet XP and Windows95 in the light.

    MS has paid off Intel not to support anything but 10 in skylake by next year and then will turn around and say LOOK NO PROBLEMS 1 BILLION INSTALLS == least buggy OS EVER. Shoot I put in my surface to teh MS store and they put in Windows 10 agaisn't my will for just a screen replacement. No Windows 8.1 will not install on a surface pro 3 as they use a custom image.

    In my professional career in 7 years of XP and 7 only twice as Windows update EVER caused a problem in these legacy systems. WIth 10 it breaks freaking every month. Why?

    MS needs a new framework that is stable, QA, and is designed modular wise to not break during an update. ASAP. My job is going to be on the line if I migrate to 10 in 2 years and things break every 3 weeks. Well Billly Gates was the one who fucked it up and they worked fine before he f*cked with it ... etc ... endrant

    In the end as a tech professional and fellow geek this is sad to prefer ancient operating systems. It shouldn't be like this and no Linux for me and work is not an option read my job description above? Can MS turn this?

    1. Re:THe firefox of operating systems by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      Notice how Chrome gets updated all the time and no one complains.

      It's also interesting how Slashdot commentators initially heavily criticized Chrome's "spying characteristics" but that criticism seems to have cooled down. Everyone whined how it constantly phones home and yada yada.

    2. Re:THe firefox of operating systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um, yes?

      Chrome updates have changed behaviour and broken loads of stuff - You're just fortunate it's not something that affected you, but I've encountered plenty.

    3. Re:THe firefox of operating systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it's the prison rape of operating systems. Microsoft has a nice hard and throbbing update for you, and you WILL bend over and you WILL take it, boy.

    4. Re:THe firefox of operating systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, that's why I use firefox...

    5. Re:THe firefox of operating systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I still complain about Chrome's spying. That's why I use and recommend Iridium.

    6. Re:THe firefox of operating systems by raind · · Score: 1

      Notice how Chrome gets updated all the time and no one complains. Actually, has a bad chrome udpate ever and I mean ever broke any plugins?

      Where my clients work they don't run chrome (well some use gmail)

      npapi and apps that need it(like some dell server shit), insecure as it is,

      --
      Get up!
    7. Re:THe firefox of operating systems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chrome breaks a lot for a browser. I believe release 47 had a nasty bug which broke Squid proxys and there have been lots of problems around WebRTC etc.

      Which ever platform you go to you are screwed :/

    8. Re:THe firefox of operating systems by volmtech · · Score: 1

      I guess I got lucky twice. I love the ACA, otherwise I wouldn't have had coverage for my wife's operation and now Win 10 works for me

      I upgraded my old Athlon 5000 desktop from Win 7. It took about 2 hours of babysitting and has been working perfectly for two months. I mostly just Web surf and Firefox now displays the open tab to the top of my monitor. After that success I upgraded my wife's new HP 15 laptop from 8.1 to 10. Same install time, only problem was I had to reinstall the drivers for my Brother ink jet printer. That and Firefox for Win 10 came with an extension the disabled JavaScript and I had to do an about:config to re-enable it.

  39. After installing the update... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It says "Try Ubuntu" on the screen.

  40. Windows 7, with Windows Update turned OFF by Dunbal · · Score: 1

    I have no problems. (But - but the hackers and trojans and etc etc) Heh, i'll take my chances.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    1. Re:Windows 7, with Windows Update turned OFF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please install dotNet 4.6+ to run this virus...

    2. Re:Windows 7, with Windows Update turned OFF by Reziac · · Score: 1

      You're downright newfangled :)

      WinXP SP3 and XP64 SP2 here, updates off from the gitgo. (I've tried Win7/8, hate 'em both. I feel no desire to install the Windows Store, aka Win10.) My boxen live behind a router/firewall and I know better than to do the Usual Stupid User Shit. The only downside is that since I never see any malware, my virus collection has fallen into neglect.

      Someone pointed this out a while back, and in my observation it's apparently true: Hackers aren't magicians and they don't have Windows source code (reputedly now some 160 million lines). So HOW do they find vulnerabilities?

      A: They reverse-engineer the patches, which tell them exactly where to look and how to attack, then they go looking for unpatched machines.

      Seriously, when did you last see an attack on Win98? Nope, nothing much since support ended. Same with XP. No new patches means way fewer clues about how to attack it.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  41. Checked my machine for that update and it's there. by Pezbian · · Score: 1

    Installed on March 1, four days ago. So far I've had no problems, but I'm running an install that's completely fresh after I switched from HDD to SDD.

    --
    In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
  42. Well, what did Microsoft expect. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I mean, when you gut your support and testing staff, and turn your customers, pardon me consumers, into your beta testers.

    Developer, "We can release it, but it could cause machines with x hardware to BSOD."
    Marketing, "Release it, we have install quotas to meet."
    Nadella, "See people love Windows 10 because y number of machines have installed it."

  43. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Presenter was clearly an idiot.

  44. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by toonces33 · · Score: 1

    A few years back we were having our Sprint Review meeting. I was sitting at my laptop, ready to take control and do my part of the presentation. And while I was waiting, the machine suddenly decided that it needed to reboot to finish applying updates. I still don't know why it chose that moment - at the time I wasn't even aware of any pending updates. I am guessing that ITS shoved something down which caused the reboot.

    I ended up going to a different machine and doing my presentation from there.

    Since then I have learned to do "net stop Windows Update" when I am getting ready to make a presentation.

  45. spotty hardware support isn't unique to Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Unbuntu was installed on a antique single core Turion laptop won't wake up from sleep properly (loses keyboard and trackpad). Then Ubuntu completely screws the pooch by going default on Unity, which made a very usable old machine (as long as you turn off sleep) to "slower than Windows." Coming from a camp that promotes itself as the un-Window, it's still got a lot of clinks to work out and a lot of soul searching to do on Unity.

    1. Re:spotty hardware support isn't unique to Apple by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Might I suggest you do some reading and learn what the differences are? Or, if you want, you can skip the reading part and just install Lubuntu. It'll run fast enough.

      Alternatively, do a little more reading and you'll learn that you can pick any one of a number of different desktop environments. They're tit-easy to install. You don't even need to use the terminal to install them but it's a bit easier through the terminal. I type faster than I look around for settings. Either way, you can just use the Lubuntu Software Center and install it with a point and click. You can search that. You can use Synaptic instead. Or, just Google, and you'll be on your way with the terminal in no time.

      I'm not sure why you'd think Ubuntu screwed the pooch. They're a rather popular distro. If by great success you mean screwed the pooch then I concur entirely. Unity has a whole bunch of happy users. I am not one of them. I hate it too. I just use LXDE and call it good.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    2. Re:spotty hardware support isn't unique to Apple by nukenerd · · Score: 1

      Why do people talk as if Ubuntu/Lubuntu/Kubuntu/Whatevertu is a synonym for Linux? You talk about using the Lubuntu software center to get an alternative desktop environment (LXDE), saying you do not like Ubuntu, but Lubuntu is still basically Ubuntu - just a different desktop environment.

      Ubuntu and its variants have gone out on a limb, become a total fork from Linux. Just ditch all of them and their Canonical crap and install an entirely different Linux distro.

    3. Re: spotty hardware support isn't unique to Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here's what he likely meant, and I'll explain it to you despite believing that you are simply feigning ignorance just to be an asshole.

      People that started using Ubuntu years and years ago did not like the default UI being changed to Unity, hence why there are now UI forks of Ubuntu, like the Mint distro.

    4. Re:spotty hardware support isn't unique to Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because Windows now has spyware, forced updates, forced reboots and it randomly breaks itself. There are also numerous reports that the forced updates have lead to fried hardware.

  46. Re:Enjoying your free OS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm am, but I'm on Debian.

    I have no issues with Ubuntu Linux as a desktop operating system used for typical web browsing, email, chatting, listening to streaming audio, watching streamed and non-streamed videos, etc. Truth be told, I could easily transition back to console-mode applications for 99% of the things I do with the computer.

  47. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was visiting a customer site, and as part of our on-site upgrades we connected the PC to the local network to bring Win7 up to speed on the latest updates. Most importantly, the security updates to protect against USB-born viruses.

    It took an hour and a fucking-half for these updates to finish. Mother-fucker.

  48. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by dryeo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's the 21st century, an operating system should be able to multitask. Should also be able to load DLLs, EXEs etc into memory and keep using them while replacing the binaries on disk, all in the background, at idle priority, and at the end ask whether to reboot now or later. And of course a laptop should be able to sleep or hibernate rather then shutting down in the middle of an update.

    --
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
  49. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It also sounds like he has a REALLY crappy laptop with a slow HDD

    Or there was a bugged update which hanged the process and they should have powered off the computer earlier. I have seen quite a few of those, especially on machines that happen to apply like 3-4 month worth of updates at time.

  50. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You made all of that up. It's so stupidly obvious that I don't know why anyone would have modded you anywhere but down for it.

  51. It's 2016 - why windows? by zerofoo · · Score: 1

    I've made quite a living over the past 20 years fixing networks built around windows, so I'm grateful to Microsoft for making a product that needs constant hand-holding.

    But it's 2016 - apart from games, why is anyone using windows?

    Sure, 15 years ago, Windows was the cheapest, easiest option - and lots of software required windows. Today, lots of stuff runs in the cloud, Chromebooks are easy and cheap, mobile devices are very powerful - even a $600 mac mini is bordering on affordable.

    My best guess is that all these people running windows are simply doing so out of inertia. Is putting up with the headaches of windows really easier than learning something else?

    1. Re:It's 2016 - why windows? by dwywit · · Score: 1

      If by "inertia" you mean "I've invested a lot of time and money on hardware and software that meets my needs, and sure, there are Mac equivalents (but not GNU/Linux), so why would I want to spend more time and money to buy over-priced hardware, an operating system that has its own problems, and application software that I'll have to buy again?"

      It's not just learning something else, it's the the cost, and the downtime.

      When people ask me whether to buy windows or mac, I ask them what do they want to do, then I give them advice about the pros and cons of each platform - price, features, reliability, etc - and let them make up their own mind.

      --
      They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
    2. Re:It's 2016 - why windows? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Sure, 15 years ago, Windows was the cheapest, easiest option

      Cheapest? Linux was pretty well established in 2001. IT's 2016 now dude. Time rolls on at a horiffically fast rate :(

      As for easiest, well, it all depends what one wanted to do. If, for example one wanted a machine that didn't crash all the time, well... until the end of 2001, the consumer desktop choice from MS was WinME. XP didn't go into general relase (and the first version was a bit shit until the service packs ramped up) until the end of 2001. The early part of that year was the Dark Times. You had WinME, versus MacOS9, which was as far as it was possibly to build that creaky, unreliable house of cards and Linux which well, I liked it. Unarguably, it gave you a unix workstation class experience for an affordable price and was rock solid. The whole "desktoppy" thing hadn't really happened, but whatever, my FVWM config from then is still in use on my machines today. Like I said, I liked it, but it was of niche appeal. The Dark Times indeed.

      Bad memories.

      Remember WinME? 95 ORS2 was OK, actually decent compared to 3.11. 98 polished it up a bit, but added really unrelaible USB support. Then WinME came along. Wasnt there some awful shit with active desktop? I don't recall in detail, thankfully. :shudder:

      As the kind of guy who often helped others with computer problems, I can assure you that WinME was **NOT** easy. It was horrendous. Maybe it was easy to use when it was running, but my gosh, it did not do that very much. Still, I got quite a number of free pints at uni for rescuing files off fux0red laptops, so, swings and roundabouts.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re:It's 2016 - why windows? by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      Is putting up with the headaches of windows really easier than learning something else?

      Learning to use new operating systems doesn't seem too difficult when you consider things like tablets and "smart"phones. My parents' generation seems fine with those, but a computer running Linux seems totally alien to them -- like, how can you possibly write a document if it doesn't have Word? Of course, these are the same people who buy a new computer when Windows has crashed too hard. It's the appliance mentality.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    4. Re:It's 2016 - why windows? by enrique556 · · Score: 1

      Coming from a small-medium business background: If you've been fixing windows networks, you'd be familiar with Active Directory and/or RDP and would know how difficult it is to replicate their functionality outside of a windows environment; SAMBA/LDAP or whatever the mess is called doesn't really come close. Personally, my working life would be much more complex without Microsoft's RDP combined with AD. For many businesses, there is no satisfactory substitute outside of the windows world for these things.
      And no, you can't "just use open source project X and Y" because they don't work properly.
      No, really.
      No, not in a business environment.
      No, because it's missing features X, Y and Z.
      No, businesses are for-profit, they don't have time to do that.
      No, a command line tool is not more productive than a GUI for end users.
      No, the online help is not better than windows' documentation, it is either out of date or incomplete.
      No, No, NO, browser "apps" are not a substitute for native windows software. You can't just "put everything in the cloud and run a chromebook".
      No, open source databases are not a robust, feature-rich alternative to MSSQL / Oracle.

      I'm sure people can counter 100% of this with their own experience (and they'd be right, since everybody's IT needs are different), but that's what I found after spending way too much time looking into it.

  52. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Ken+D · · Score: 2

    Not really. MS has totally screwed up Windows Update.

    Malicious Software Detection tool runs and scans your disk as a stupid update. I literally see people who haven't taken control of Updates away from Microsoft spend 30 or more minutes waiting for their laptop to shutdown so they can go home.

    Laptops are shutdown so they can be carried away. NOW! not when MS is done futzing around.
    Same thing with boot. I boot so I can get work done! Not so that some crappy updater can tell me that there's an Adobe Reader update available and I just need to re-reboot my computer before I can do whatever it is I turned my computer on to do.

  53. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by DrJimbo · · Score: 1

    That is the speaker's fault. He had updates scheduled and when he shut his machine down, he left it in a state of "partly updated" so that it finished updating when it was turned on. It also sounds like he has a REALLY crappy laptop with a slow HDD, which he shouldn't if he is a "really important speaker". Frankly, the speaker was unprepared. This is not Windows' fault, this is his.

    Certainly it was his fault. What was he thinking relying on Windows to hold something that was mission critical to him. Just kidding. Sort of.

    Seriously, the important question is not whether the speaker was partial responsible for the debacle, the question is whether people want an OS that behaves that way or if they want an OS that is easier to use.

    I've been working with computers for over 40 years (can't believe it has been that long). I'm most comfortable when I feel like I'm in control of the machine and not the other way around. That's why I mostly use Linux. I admit, Linux is not for everyone. The opposite extreme from Linux is Apple's iOS. I bought a used iPad and I'm fine with it too. I like to drive but I don't mind if someone else drives as long as they are competent at it and don't make me want to jump out of the car or hold on for dear life.

    I now have three Windows 8.1 machines that I have been using to test Linux distros and Linux UEFI booting. Windows really is the worst of both worlds. It grabs control of the car and then immediately drives it into the ditch. If Windows creates an NPE (negative play experience) when it is used on small, underpowered laptops with a hard drive then it should not come pre-installed on those machines. Blaming someone who uses the pre-installed OS on a computer they bought is kind of silly. If the OS is going to take the driver's seat then it needs to do it with such ease and competence that I don't have to worry about it just like I don't have to worry about the hardware (most of the time).

    On Linux I don't have to wrestle for control because it is easy for me to take control. I don't have to wrestle for control with iOS (on my iPad) because I can easily do what I want to do and let the OS do the driving. With Windows I often want to wrestle for control (don't do that update now dammit!) but I always lose.

    --
    We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
    -- Anais Nin
  54. Re: Only way to be sure... by Leslie43 · · Score: 2

    Take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

  55. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    I remember a few years ago at a conference in Europe one of the keynote speakers had flown in from the US for her talk. Half way trough the laptop decided it was 4am US time or something and shutdown to apply all the patches it had queued up. The laptop took about 15 minutes to do it's thing---quite a chunk out of a hour long talk. Fortunately the schedule was reasonable gentle for that conference so she and the following speaker weren't really badly put out by it.

    Anway it was pretty amusing. All the Linux users instantly started to wear exceptionally smug expressions.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  56. Disappointingly didn't cause problems by jader3rd · · Score: 1

    After reading all of the comments here I thought I'd check what my computers update status was. It said that there was a restart pending to install KB3140743. I clicked Restart, the computer ran updates and came back fine. Now I've even typing this comment on the computer which just installed KB3140743! O'well, no exciting BSOD for me.

  57. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was at a conference last year : an important speaker was scheduled to be the first one of the day.
    He comes to the stage with his laptop (Windows 7), starts it up, and screams in disgust at the screen "Please do not power off your machine. [...] Well, see you next year!"

    That's brilliant! Often, speakers can attend conferences free of charge, where otherwise it would be pretty expensive. This strategy offers a perfectly believable way to get to attend for free without having to go through the effort to prepare a presentation.

  58. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He was perfectly prepared. The presentation was on: How to screw up your presentation, and Learn From My Fail.

    In all seriousness, I hope he didn't get paid for presenting.

  59. Maybe I should be happy by Streetlight · · Score: 1

    I can't upgrade my Dell XPS 15 (L502X) laptop to reliable use of Windows 10 and Dell suggests not to upgrade. Dell's website shows this device hasn't been tested for Windows 10 and there are other sites reporting bad things happen when it is converted to Windows 10. I'm currently a happy camper running Windows 7. Although this laptop is thick and heavy compared to those ultra thin, lightweight XPS 15s now available, it built like a tank, is more than fast enough, the screen is fabulous and I've never had a problem with it. Maybe I'm lucky to have it but I'm not sure what my choices will be is four years when MS stops providing security updates for Windows 7.

    --
    In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
    1. Re:Maybe I should be happy by jawtheshark · · Score: 1
      I have one of those. I did upgrade to 10 from 7, without issues. The thing is, I only did that to secure the 10 license. Basically I imaged my 100GB 7 partition, upgraded, looked whether 10 said it was activated and put back the 7 image and applied to NoOSUpgrade patches. I actually never boot into 7, to be honest. 99% of the time, I'm just running Linux.

      My sister and brother have the same laptop and I did the same for them. They do use Windows, but I understood they'd rather stay with 7.

      Interesting to hear that 10 doesn't work well on that model. Given they're really excellent laptops (Quad Core 2nd Gen i7, halfway decent NVidia graphics and 16GB RAM, great 1080p screen) it would be sad to have to discontinue using them in 2020.

      --
      Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
  60. Guess I'm lucky by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 2

    I've never really had any issues with Windows 10. About the only issue I have with 2 machines running it, is one of them refuses to sleep automatically after the set period of idle. Still trying to figure that one out, but other than that, works good. Guess I'm just lucky.

    In all truth, if you open the old Control Panel (you can search for it via the start menu), it just looks like Windows 7 underneath the new UI. And as far as privacy, I'm 2 PC's out of what, a billion installs? I turned off what can be turned off and whatever is left... Does anyone really think a human being is looking at what MY PC is submitting? I highly doubt I'm that important, and if I am, I think I'd be flattered honestly.

    Bottom line for me is.. it works. Runs all my crap (and I run a lot of stuff, like cygwin, VMWare, various dev tools, games, libreoffice, and on and on) and seems to be stable (I've never had it crash or do anything weird other than that one machine refusing to sleep automatically.) So I really just fail to see the uproar over this thing. Again guess I'm just one of the lucky people.

    1. Re:Guess I'm lucky by InsertCleverUsername · · Score: 1

      Ah, but you're missing the point of these postings... It's not about helpful information (how many PCs/users affected? Root cause?), it's only bait to hate on MS.

      Windows kills your family and destroys the world, Apple and Linux are flawless and have never had a single bug, exploit, or bad patch.

      Wash, rinse, repeat.

      --
      Ask me about my sig!
    2. Re:Guess I'm lucky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I highly doubt I'm that important, and if I am, I think I'd be flattered honestly.

      You're not. It's just that in a few years, all your telemetry will be sold by some hacker or by some rogue MS employee to someone looking for ID theft / scam victims, shit like that happens from time to time, and that telemetry will make their jobs all that much easier. And you'll suffer that, all because there was a shitload of data siphoned from your computer that you thought was worthless, only hackers know best.

      Heck, even the tiniest info like that you take 3 seconds on average to type your login passwords can be incredibly useful to a hacker, making you look like the lowest hanging fruit waiting to be reaped for profit.

      No, you're not personally that important. You're just another potential victim, and all that spyware makes you look yummy.

  61. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

    Not really, people that just aren't willing to acceptbugs and crashes need to get th fuck off the beta builds and stick to consumer builds (i.e. not the insider builds).

  62. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's very hard to learn and understand MS products including their server product and features when you have tutorials written(vague and ambiguous) by academics for academics. It's same issue with troubleshooting MS errors in any of their products. You look at the logs(very cryptic) in the "Event Viewer" and you end up searching the EventID online only to come to MS website with cryptic description of the issue and solutions. My guess, they are trying to earn more revenue from selling their books which are a little bit better but too time consuming.

    With linux, in the past I had multiple video issues with ubuntu, so I went to the ubuntu forum and found all the solutions in plain english in 20 minutes or less but with MS you spend hours or even days.

  63. The thing I hate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is it crashes to your bios to move its boot loader up to first position without your permission.
    Then I have to change it back if you are not in front of the machine to sip disk check this happens.
    I just will not leave my linux mint the only boot loader.

    You delete the windows from the bios it will put it right back.

  64. Microsoft has INCOMPETENT management. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Are they hitting a wall of unmanageable complexity?" No, my view is that Microsoft has hit a wall built of many years of technically incompetent top management.

    Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was called "Monkey Boy". The January 16, 2013 issue of BusinessWeek magazine has a large photo of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (now replaced by Satya Nadella) with the headline calling him "Monkey Boy". See the BusinessWeek cover in this article: Steve Ballmer Is No Longer A Monkey Boy, Says Bloomberg BusinessWeek. The BusinessWeek cover says "No More" and "Mr.", but that doesn't take much away from the fact that the magazine called Ballmer "Monkey Boy" -- on its cover.

    Worst CEO in the United States: Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today."

    Another quote: "The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value -- and jobs." (May 12, 2012)

    Who would want to work for "Monkey Boy"? Microsoft is apparently not able to hire socially competent people. Apparently Satya Nadella was chosen because he was the least annoying person. However, he does not seem to me to be the kind of person who can handle the enormous conflicts inside Microsoft.

    This is my guess: Someone at Microsoft said, "Google and Facebook are collecting data about customers and selling it; let's do that also." So Windows 8 was designed to try to sell "Apps", as though Windows was a particularly trashy cell phone operating system. I was shocked when I first saw the Windows 8.1 GUI. Utterly incompetent. Now Windows 10 is apparently trying to imitate Google Android, which has become more and more invasive.

    People who have work to do have already learned the GUIs they need. Even if the design is imperfect, that's what they know. They don't want wild changes.

    It's scary. In the last few months, Windows 10 has been shown again and again to be sloppily designed and implemented, as well as being spyware.

    Judging from comments on Slashdot, people try to find some technical reason for Microsoft's policies. They apparently have difficulty imagining that Microsoft managers are as incompetent as they are.

    Some links:

    Windows 8: NSA Backdoor Exploit in Windows 8 Uncovered (Aug. 22, 2013)

    Windows: NSA "backdoor" mandates lead to a computer-security FREAK show Quote: "Microsoft Windows OS vulnerable to hackers, thanks to National Security Agency requirements." (March 6, 2015)

    Windows: NSA Built Back Door In All Windows Software by 1999 (June 7, 2013)

    Windows 10, Microsoft hiding what it is doing: Microsoft has no plans to tell us what's in Windows patches. Quote: "Each update is a black box, and it's going to stay that way." (Aug 21, 2015)

    Windows 10, Microsoft takes even more control: Windows 10 is spying on almost everything you do -- here's how to opt out (July 31, 2015) But, of course, Microsoft can change the spyware to a

  65. All that is needed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...is a way of directly running graphics cards, full speed (direct PCI access), from within a Virtual Machine - and then I can ditch Windows forever, and just run the few Windows things I need in a virtual machine.

    It's already possible in some VM's, to directly run a second graphics card like this, with some hacking - what we need, is to have this kind of virtualization built-in somehow, so that it can be shared/switched between VM and primary OS.

  66. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's the 21st century, an operating system should be able to multitask

    Multi-task replacing parts of itself? Yeah, right.

  67. Problems? What problems? by westlake · · Score: 2

    Updates KB 3140743 and KB 3139907 installed routinely on both my four year old 64 Bit HP desktop (Win 10 Pro Build 10586) and 32 Bit HP Stream 8 tablet (Win 10 Home Build 10586). I've seen no problems with performance or stability, no problems with programs like Edge or the 64 bit Firefox beta.

    There are something like 200 million Win 10 installations out there.

    How many of them will be successfully updated over the weekend with their users barely aware that anything unusual had happened?

    1. Re:Problems? What problems? by tdarklighter · · Score: 1

      That's absolutely a fantastic philosophy unless you're running a support company and then 10-20% of your clients are down at once on Monday morning.

    2. Re:Problems? What problems? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      How many of them will be successfully updated over the weekend with their users barely aware that anything unusual had happened?

      So you're saying that Windows updates are like playing Russian roulette but someone else is pointing the gun and deciding when to pull the trigger?

      This would be forgiveable if people could manage their own updates. Let the early adopters early adopt, and then roll your updates once stable just like with every previous windows release. But if I'm going to play Russian roulette I at least want to be the one holding the gun.

  68. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Zuriel · · Score: 2

    The problem with Windows is the way it handles file access.

    Under Linux, when you delete a file it's removed from the directory listing, but it's still there on disk. Any program that was using the file continues using the now 'deleted' file.

    So an updater can delete a file that's in use and write a new version of the file. Programs that run from that point on use the new file, programs that are still running from before the update keep using the old, deleted file. That's what lets updates quietly run in the background.

  69. Windows 10 bricked by family and business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They are dead to us as consumers.

    Windows 10 wrecked havoc on my family of ASUS business laptops.

    Waited months after the initial update. Tripled checked the manufacturers website.

    Windows did the updates and EVERY time the system tried to boot up or down there was some crazy problem. Then add all the updates that never transparently fixed anything - more bloatware.

    The main issue was all the new services that switched on that destroyed productivity and NOWHERE at MS was anyone knowledgeable about how to fix what should have been easy things.

    Rolled back what I could to Windows 7. Fresh install. Had to installed all programs. Thank God I still had my data.

    Now I can actually use my computer and software.

    With computers like this who needs computers?

    I literally went back to pencil and paper for two weeks - like business disaster recovery.

    Linux in our future.

    Windows 10 is a joke and nothing more than glorified spyware.

    1. Re:Windows 10 bricked by family and business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now you know a bit of our pain as enterprise IT folks who are tasked with transitioning a corporate fleet to a new Windows version.

      Microsoft doesn't give one shit about upgrades breaking your current software. No one with any experience does an in-place upgrade because of this fact.

      The sooner Microsoft's popular support dwindles down to zero and Satya Nadella can go back to his designated shitting streets, the sooner some sanity might return to MS.

  70. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by MrKrillls · · Score: 2

    Maybe a pro should always be on top of how updated their machine is. Maybe. But the average person should not need to be watching for that. It is a stupid pain in the backside to find, just as one needs to shut down, that there are an hour and a half of updates, and one is told not to power off. A genius piece of customer relations, that.

    --
    Don't step on the baby.
  71. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by HiThere · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Better isn't sufficient. You also need compatible with all older programs.

    There are a large number of people who are dependent on certain particular programs, and if they stop working the system is useless.

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  72. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by HiThere · · Score: 2

    Stable? I haven't had a crash in the last decade, and I frequently update my system. Of course, I do periodically do a fresh install, but that's because I like to clean out old cruft when installing a new version, not because I need to.

    I will admit that Debian testing used to crash badly once or twice during the development cycle, but that hasn't happened recently, and I never had that happen with stable.

    That said, there are a lot of distros out there, and probably some of the pay less attention to stability. Still, why should someone be forced to choose stability over cutting edge software (or the other way around)?

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  73. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by cm5oom · · Score: 1

    I understand where you're coming from but I think this highlights why microsoft forced updates on windows 10. Users just want to turn their machine on to do X then turn it off. Update notices get in the way of that so users delay or prevent them so the updates never end up getting installed. Then their machine gets infected by a billion malware cause they haven't updated in over a year so their machine is full of holes. You say you just want to get work down now so don't bother you with updates but the updates need to be installed at some point so when is a good time for you?

  74. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whose needs are more important, the users or the OS's? Who is serving who? Obviously Microsoft doesn't give a flying fuck about user needs, whether potential or actual.

  75. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by dbIII · · Score: 1

    So everyone has to be a sysadmin now and it's their fault if they are not?
    Just because it's a mistake you would not have made does not mean that it is fine to blame the user and not a flaw of the product.

  76. Now I'm really confused by LesFerg · · Score: 1

    So I had a glitch in the windows store, the first time I tried to use it (to buy a music album) but the microsoft engineer suggested I run a powershell command to reinstall windows store, which completely borked it and now the store app don't run at all.

    Now I don't know of the microsoft engineer just gave me really bad advice, or if something that should have fixed my original problem was messed up by other issues with this windows update.

    The only 'fix' I have been able to find on the googles involves downloading a windows 10 iso and doing a in-place reinstall of the O/S. Something I have no inclination to do whatsoever. Do I really need the windows store app to be operational? Is there any dependency on it that I have not noticed yet?

    While all that mess was going on, I installed iTunes and purchased the album I was looking for.

    --
    If I had a DeLorean... I would probably only drive it from time to time.
    1. Re:Now I'm really confused by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It took me all of 3 minutes to torrent that album on my Linux box. No updates that didn't, or non-accessible stores to deal with, either.

      Just sayin'.

  77. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 1

    I understand where you're coming from but I think this highlights why microsoft forced updates on windows 10. Users just want to turn their machine on to do X then turn it off. Update notices get in the way of that so users delay or prevent them so the updates never end up getting installed. Then their machine gets infected by a billion malware cause they haven't updated in over a year so their machine is full of holes. You say you just want to get work down now so don't bother you with updates but the updates need to be installed at some point so when is a good time for you?

    Well, you could, y'know, try using the update method described as the one that Linux uses--I will admit it does need to be rebooted, but I suppose that's so everything can be gotten using the new version of the file as I saw no detectable changes in shutdown/bootup in the process.

    If you have your update process be buggy & annoying, and are prone to pushing out patches that should have M$ ordering paper bags by the boatload for pretending they'd even finished alpha testing? You should not be surprised if users reasonably decide that updating is not a Good Idea.

  78. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 1

    The problem is--and you could find this out from the summary, really--is that this is the alleged consumer build that's having these kinds of problems.

  79. Well the problem with that line of reasoning by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 1
    Is that it broke BEFORE I installed classic shell and I installed classic shell BECAUSE the start menu and other items were broken by an update.

    sarcasm = on

    I guess maybe it's my fault for loading up horseshit like steam on an otherwise clean install of Win 10

    sarcasm off.

    --
    Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
  80. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No it isn't. It is the insider builds, i.e. people that have selected getting beta builds.

  81. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by cm5oom · · Score: 1

    That's the techie's answer to the question tho. For a normal user that doesn't know and doesn't want to know (aka grandma) they don't prevent updates because they keep up with the tech news and know it might break something, they prevent updates because they get in the way of the photos they want to upload to facebook or whatever. You said "have your update procress be buggy & annoying" but to the normal user the very existence of the update system itself is the annoyance. They don't want to be bothered by updates, ever. Window 10 forcing updates is a direct result of people not installing updates on all previous version of windows, stop and think about that for a minute.

  82. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can't multitask in the middle of replacing your graphical environment. Well, the OS can but you won't be doing much.

  83. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

    I multitasked yesterday while upgrading KDE to a new point-release.

    A turning point was reached some months ago in my years-long struggle to get my wife off Windows when she saw me doing updates with YaST and could not believe how fast they were. Now she's on a Mac and still going on whenever she has an update about how Windows updates took her *hours*.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  84. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And you're obviously a butthurt 14-year-old if that's the best comeback you have.

  85. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

    And just a very few shills posting AC to helpfully point this out to us... Yeah, right.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  86. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 0

    So everyone has to be a sysadmin now and it's their fault if they are not?

    Nice strawman you have there...

    If you're going to give an important presentation, make sure you have everything you need ready to go.

    Next you'll say he forgot to bring his power cord a that is the laptops fault somehow.

  87. Telemetry sky net became self aware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And decided to apply chaos monkey testing to its instances to check whether it is resilient.

    Telemetry sky net works, we are doomed.

  88. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 0

    I literally see people who haven't taken control of Updates away from Microsoft spend 30 or more minutes waiting for their laptop to shutdown so they can go home.

    If your laptop is taking 30 min to run Windows Update, then perhaps it is time to replace your 15 year old laptop with something designed this decade.

    Even with a hard drive and not a SSD, it shouldn't take that long.

  89. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

    It took an hour and a fucking-half for these updates to finish. Mother-fucker.

    Perhaps a SSD is called for, along with a computer newer than 15 years old?

    Even my Core2Quad doesn't take that long to do a complete Windows install, much less updates

  90. I feel like a beta tester after each update by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Every time I receive a update I realize I am a beta tester where my previous issues might get fixed, but then I get the grief of realizing new issues and waiting for the next update to fix those. This ideal is a mess and again I am so glad the only thing I use Windows PC for is gaming. That in itself is a mess these days with Windows 10. I am so sorry I ever upgraded from Windows 7. With Windows 10 I have now become a perpetual beta tester.

  91. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's the 21st century, an operating system should be able to multitask.

    More importantly, it's a computer, it should not do things without me telling it to "just to be helpful".

    Mi Windows experience form Windows 7 and forward have been a lot like getting help from a 5 year old.
    I understand the good intention but things would go a lot smoother if it didn't try to help me.

  92. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    It's the 21st century, an operating system should be able to multitask.

    Given Microsoft's reliability when focusing only on one task I think it's way to early to try and get Windows to do two things at once.

  93. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Ken+D · · Score: 1

    It's specifically the malicious software removal tool that takes forever.
    It's scanning the files on your hard disk, the time this takes depends on what kind of data and how much of it you have on your computer.

  94. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 1

    I was referring to the process itself, though the fact they do push out OS-breaking patches to the general public makes the confusion understandable...and the fact it is reaching them is more than a bug, because yeah, they want it to just work. They don't want to be bothered by bad updates, and they don't want Windows Update behaving like a 'helpful' virus by hijacking their computer suddenly to install updates and sometimes let them do nothing else while it happens. They wanted to post pictures to Facebook, or email Grandma, or work--and instead they're sitting there for who-knows-how-long waiting for their computer to finish updates. This is what will get them to turn off updates, permanently.

    If they were techies, they'd still run them, but by hand and after a suitable delay to ensure that they know what updates to not install. Updates done well fix things you want fixed, and if you're a techie you are aware of this.

    The Linux method sounds pretty good as a way to get around it: It can run silently in the background, no need to be hard to distinguish from malware or a virus, and if the need for reboots is kept to a minimum you can probably get away with having it do something like a polite popup letting you know to reboot the computer sometime soon and swapping the wallpaper to a "REBOOT ME!" notice. As long as it takes about the same time as a normal shutdown and reboot, the normal user may never see any reason to want to disable updates--especially if OS-breaking ones are kept to a minimum, and the suggested method might enable having a quick rollback method built in.

    Windows 10 forcing updates is a direct result of Microsoft pushing out bad updates to the general public and an updater that works like malware or a virus, stop and think about that.

  95. Disabling Windows Update in Home Edition by Prototerm · · Score: 2

    You don't need any special tools or programs to disable Windows Update in Windows 10 Home. Just go into Services and disable the Windows Update service itself. Best plan is to keep it disabled until a few weeks after each major update (when you know that the update won't bork your system), turn it back on, do the update manually, then turn it off again until after the next month's Patch Tuesday. Put an icon for Services on the desktop to make life easier. In addition, make sure you enable setting a restore point during a Windows Update in case something still goes wrong.
    Remember: Paranoia means never having to say you're sorry!

    --
    "My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
  96. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by dbIII · · Score: 1

    You are reminding me of Daniel Stone's "truth about Wayland" presentation where he "forgot" his video cables and never redid the presentation properly for web consumption.

    While you and I would expect the situation due to the experience of dealing with many computers it's a bit much to expect end users to anticipate such a situation.

  97. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by cm5oom · · Score: 1

    The windows update on 10 and previous versions fits much of your description of linux update systems. ( I was going to spend some time pointing what the differences were but then I realized it should be obvious and I was too lazy anyway. ) Really the problem is not that microsoft doesn't do it but that they don't do it as well as other systems do. If windows 10 didn't have buggy updates and if reboots didn't take longer it would fit your description almost perfectly.

    The longer shutdowns are obviously just poor design that have been around since windows 95 if not earlier. As for the buggy updates some of it is the lack of QA staff, but a lot of it is also the massive install base. Yes I know that answer is trite and nobody seems to believe it for whatever reason but it's true. and I'll put forth my own anecdote as proof. The buggy update that's the cause of this post on slashdot didn't happen to my windowns 10 machine at all, in fact none of the buggy updates that have been reported on slashdot have affected me at all. Not to say everything has been perfect because there was one update that caused a game I play to stop working (it also broke some other programs for other people). But slashdot never reported that buggy update because it didn't affect a lot of people which kind of sums up my point. There are a billion different configurations of windows so an update is pretty much guaranteed to break one of them. Microsoft is apparently unable to to find and fix all these broken configs before they push the update out. Whether that's due to incompetence, laziness or lack of money I'll leave up to other people to speculate on.

      People will probably call me a shill if I try to talk about this any more (if they haven't already) so I'll just leave it here.

  98. Yay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ah, so that is what happened to my kids computer. It is the only one I put 10 on, yesterday it would not boot, just the blue screen asking if I want to repair. I fixed it with windows 7. I knew forced updates was going to burn me, I have been burned several times in the past by their stupid driver updates. As long as I always turned those off I really never had a problem.

  99. Head it off at the pass by abmw · · Score: 1

    I reccomend this http://ultimateoutsider.com/do... as a way to stop win 10 from infecting an otherwise healthy win 7 install

  100. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

    Fair enough... but if you care about performance in 2016, you're on a SSD and then it doesn't take that long...

    In any case, if people would keep their machines up to date, this wouldn't have been needed, but since people DON'T do that, this is what we get.

    Either leave your machine plugged in at home so it can update at 3am, or run updates manually at a time you prefer, or accept it.

  101. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by vandamme · · Score: 1

    Linux & Wine. Lots of your old XP hardware will work too.

  102. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 1

    I think you missed entirely that the differences are the problem: I can leave somebody vastly happier with a Linux box despite them being a user by your definition of a user with it pretty much configured to do background updates. If it's not one meant for as much uptime as possible--I've used a few boxes as basically more human-friendly voicemail, as it's more likely to reach me--then you wouldn't even need the user to ever know, and you might well design it to only do the notifications of reboots being wanted if it notices it's on a system that spends most of its time up.

    The fact that Windows has the longer shutdowns and bootups--and, I should note, I've flat-out watched people have even Win10 spontaneously reboot itself for updates--is exactly what encourages people to block updates. How much blunter do I need to be about bad design being why the problem exists? Invisible, seamless updates is good design precisely because it does not encourage users to block updates.

    My experience is that yeah, I've only been hit once by a buggy update--but it only takes being burned once, and if you have it so the old versions of the files hang around in the system you could have it so rolling back a bad update is painless. I suspect if you were willing to put the effort in, you could even do it so it happens relatively automatically after a failed post-update boot, meaning that once you've rolled out the new update system it would take a spectacularly horrible update to actually leave somebody burned & the time sufficient to ensure you or somebody close to you experiences such might be longer than a lifetime, even without necessarily improving the QA process.

    If you don't understand that this problem existed in the first place precisely because of bad design, and isn't going to be fixed without fixing the design, I'm not sure how to help you except by suggesting you consider learning some of the psychology involved in what makes a design good or bad & why it matters. Their 'fix' done by fiat instead of by implementing a good design means I find myself stuck helping people learn how to find the version of Linux that best suits their needs because they don't want to deal with things like their computer deciding to reboot without letting them save their work while they're working on a major paper. (Remember, they're users: don't assume they have it set to save automatically or save manually as they work.)

  103. Windows 7 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I rolled back to Windows 7 about a week ago.

    After upgrading to Windows 10, my Linux system with an admittedly older kernel could no longer mount a directory I shared from Windows.
    Windows 10 was a little faster booting up and going into standby mode, but I found many things to be more of a hassle.
    But the lack of control of the system was what made me decide that Windows 10 just wasn't for me.

    When you give software companies full control of hardware you own, you'll eventually regret it.

  104. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by cm5oom · · Score: 1

    I think you're the one that doesn't understand what I'm talking about. I'm not defending windows or saying it's fine. I was merely trying to explain how and why its update system works the way it does and what microsoft's though process was.

  105. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by HiThere · · Score: 1

    Sorry, but Wine takes a long time to catch up to MSWind changes...or at least it did when I switched. And it DOESN'T handle timing dependent changes at all.

    Now I'll grant that my comment is based on MSWind95 compatibility, which it never sufficiently attained, but I've no reason to believe that it's any better today. Wine is fine for certain applications, but those tend to be precisely the applications that aren't usually broken by system upgrades.

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  106. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is not Windows' fault, this is his.

    No, it's Windows fault.

  107. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Blaming the victim, I see.

    I always checked the "don't install without my say-so" button on updates, and recently I still got hit with a batch of updates I had not OKed. I don't know how that happened, but at least it didn't downgrade the W7 laptop to Windows 10. The default is that Microsoft decides when you update (and they've removed the opt-out provisions in W10).

    This means that, unless you know what you're doing, your system will update automatically, and this is by Microsoft's design. Any consequences of this are consequences of Microsoft's policy. The speaker was probably using Windows 7 exactly as Microsoft intended. Further, you don't know how powerful the laptop was, or how many updates were backed up.

    So, you think that anyone who uses a Windows laptop should be required to know the details of how Windows operates, and schedule around Microsoft's demands, and/or buy an arbitrarily powerful system on the chance that Microsoft wants to take it over for a while.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  108. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

    Blaming the victim, I see.

    Who, Microsoft? Because the user didn't bother to bring his machine in a prepared state for his presentation?

    I don't know how that happened, but at least it didn't downgrade the W7 laptop to Windows 10.

    Allow me to be blunt... anyone who makes such a comment really, really needs to get out more...

    Calling Windows 10 a downgrade over Windows 7 is just being a Microsoft hater and is wearing blinders. In basically every respect, Windows 10 is an upgrade over Windows 7. While there may be corner cases where 7 remains useful, they are just that, corner cases. Such cases exist for Windows 98 and Windows XP as well, but that doesn't make Windows 7 a downgrade over those choices.

    Further, you don't know how powerful the laptop was, or how many updates were backed up.

    It doesn't matter... If you are showing up for a professional presentation, it is your job to show up with equipment that works. With Windows, this is not hard to do, simply make sure your machine is fully updated and ready to go. Frankly, if you are being paid to do this sort of work, you should bring two computers, because stuff happens.

    Anyone who blames their gear for not being able to get their work done is just making excuses.

    So, you think that anyone who uses a Windows laptop should be required to know the details of how Windows operates

    Yes, they should. Know how to use your tools, or find someone who does and have them prepare it for you. But just "assuming it will somehow all work out" is very unprofessional.

  109. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Dogmatic much?

    The victim I was referring to was the speaker who was blindsided by Microsoft's updates. He counted on his computer to work, and it didn't, because Microsoft made certain decisions. He couldn't have made sure it was updated the night before with Windows 10, because Windows 10 will download and install updates when it darn well pleases. If he'd had two computers, both might have been overwhelmed with updates. It would appear that Windows is an unreliable operating system, and should be replaced by something better suited for the guy who just wants to get stuff done.

    I don't know how well my W7 laptop would work with W10. I've seen reports of problems with upgrades. While W10 is a considerable improvement in many ways, the UI is not clearly better and my new W10 laptop has given me some problems the W7 one never did. The "upgrade" software Microsoft is pushing is malware, according to every objective definition of malware I've seen. It's downloading gigs of software whether the user wants it or not, and tries to induce the user to just install it.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  110. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

    The victim I was referring to was the speaker who was blindsided by Microsoft's updates. He counted on his computer to work, and it didn't, because Microsoft made certain decisions. He couldn't have made sure it was updated the night before with Windows 10, because Windows 10 will download and install updates when it darn well pleases.

    Windows 10 Pro with updates deferred, then run the night before, would not have had this problem. Anything approaching the end of deferral would have been updated the day before, anything more recent would still be on deferral and would not run at a critical time.

    There is a solution, people simply don't want to use it or know about it. They would rather blame someone else rather than themselves for not being prepared.

    Pro exists for a reason.

    The "upgrade" software Microsoft is pushing is malware, according to every objective definition of malware I've seen.

    Then you're not reading the right ones, because it isn't malware as far as I'm concerned. It is tracking what programs you install and run, it is key-logging what you type into Cortana, it is tracking what web sites you visit to create a profile of a user. It then assigns that profile and that log to a random machine ID and uses it to build a pattern over time. But it doesn't do any of this in secret, this information is well known.

    It will allow Microsoft to build a better Windows over time, knowing what people are really doing with their computers. It isn't malware because it is upfront about what it is doing and it was my choice to install it. Some of the features can be turned off, but perhaps not all. Welcome to 2016, Apple and Google aren't really much of an improvement here, for whatever that is worth. You could make some "Year of the Linux" argument, but lets be honest, Linux had the chance 15 years ago and blew it, it will not happen now for many reasons, few of them technical.

  111. Nonsense by hucker75 · · Score: 1

    I have had ZERO problems with Windows 10. It works better than previous versions, and was FREE. Stop the moaning.

  112. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    So, Windows is acceptable for someone who pays for the Pro edition, and then learns what it does and does not allow it to do? How impressive.

    The malware I was referring to is not the telemetry, which however is not up front about what it's doing. It's the software on my W7 laptop that has downloaded gigs of software I don't want, and attempts to get me to install it.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  113. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

    So, Windows is acceptable for someone who pays for the Pro edition, and then learns what it does and does not allow it to do? How impressive.

    If you use your computer for work, you should be on Pro.

    If you use your computer for work, you should know how the computer works, or have someone on staff who does.

    The malware I was referring to is not the telemetry, which however is not up front about what it's doing. It's the software on my W7 laptop that has downloaded gigs of software I don't want, and attempts to get me to install it.

    Well then it is Windows 7 that is the issue, not 10! Solve your issue today and upgrade to 10! :)

    All kidding aside, I'll grant you the point that downloading Windows 10 to be installed in the future is a bit much. Not everyone is on an unlimited connection and not everyone has tons of drive space, so fair point there.

    On the flip side, outside of the extreme edge cases for specific needs to be on a specific Windows version, everyone really should upgrade to Windows 10. There is no reason to stay on 7 for the vast majority of users. Microsoft might be pushing a tad hard, but since they are giving 10 away, I give them a few points back for that choice.

    For most users, this is a very minor concern. Maybe to you it is important, and if so, fair enough, but it is worth noting that to the vast majority of users, this would be item number 437 on their "give a crap list" and it just doesn't rank attention.

  114. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    You're expressing your personal opinion as if it were fact. Pro gives you advantages over Home, but I've never heard anyone else say that anyone who uses their computer for work should be on Pro. There are lots of reasons why Pro might well be worth it, but I've never seen any warning against using Home.

    Moreover, we don't know that the speaker did this sort of thing often enough to justify another computer.

    It's not a big deal, but it is a genuine problem with Windows.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  115. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

    You're expressing your personal opinion as if it were fact.

    In fairness, your comments about Windows 10 being a downgrade over Windows 7/8.1 were along similar lines. :)

    In any case, I don't think it is opinion in this case, I think it is indeed a fact, when it comes to Windows 10. Let me explain:

    Pro gives you advantages over Home, but I've never heard anyone else say that anyone who uses their computer for work should be on Pro.

    I would have agreed with you on Windows 8.1 and before, it didn't matter then. Windows 10 is the first version for which it matters and the first version that I suggest to professionals that they use Pro. The primary reason is the ability to defer updates to a time convenient to you.

    Windows 10 Home does updates whenever it darn well pleases, which doesn't matter much to your average Home user that doesn't make money with their computer and often has it left plugged in over night (when it will update at 3am) and thus never notice the updates.

    Windows 10 Pro allows updates to be deferred, so if you are traveling or doing work with your machine where it MUST be available for you at specific times, then you should have updates deferred and manually run Windows Update once a week at a time that works for you. If you do this, you won't be stuck like the presenter was.

    It's not a big deal, but it is a genuine problem with Windows.

    In fairness, it is a genuine problem with users who refuse to learn anything about computers or keep their machines in good working condition.

    This new "forced updates" thing came about due to millions of people never running Windows Updates, running botted and infected machines, and then blaming Microsoft for crappy Windows Security.

    I will say that I'd like to see a bit more notice given of large updates and the ability to defer them for one week, in the event that it is not a good time. If you turn your computer on and a big update is scheduled, it could come up with a box saying "large update to Windows read, run now, or run tomorrow/next week?" with a note saying "if you defer this now, you will not be able to defer it again after a week, run Windows Update manually to update at a time that works for you."

    Of course, even THAT is too complex for your average computer user, who as I said above, doesn't want to learn how a computer works. Which is probably why Microsoft didn't do it.

  116. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    I see we aren't disagreeing as much as I thought.

    The problem with Windows updates and the Home edition is new, and has not been well advertised. "Windows 10 Pro - It Won't Screw Up Your Presentation" comes to mind as an advertising slogan, but that may just be me.

    I also question whether it's a problem with users. Last Windows 7 box I bought (and am retiring because the video's getting a touch flaky) came with automatic updates checked. If the problem is that users are going into the Control Panel to disable automatic updating, it's for a reason, and Microsoft needs to consider what that reason is.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  117. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 1

    I see we aren't disagreeing as much as I thought.

    I imagine much of the "disagreement" on forums such as this comes down to the poor use of text to communicate. In person, you have instant feedback, you have body language, and you have the "tone" in the voice that says as much as the words do.

    I like to think that most people are actually quite reasonable, or at least would behave reasonably regardless of their feelings, in person.

    The problem with Windows updates and the Home edition is new, and has not been well advertised. "Windows 10 Pro - It Won't Screw Up Your Presentation" comes to mind as an advertising slogan, but that may just be me.

    Yea, that is kinda funny. :)

    I actually understand the frustration behind the "anti-MS" crowd, I just think that it is funneled into pointless rants that won't fix anything and don't help the situation. Thus my comment about the "upgrade Windows 10 to Windows 7" comment, I find that to be unhelpful, since staying forever on Windows 7 is not a reasonable option in the long run.

    I also honestly don't think nearly as many people in the world care about all this as it would appear from reading forums like SlashDot and Reddit. These places attract the very vocal, but most people just aren't that tuned in to it.

    If the people unhappy would, instead of ranting, register a web site like "www.changewindowsupdatestooptional.com" and get people to sign it and post comments on it, that might be more helpful than anything ranted about here.

    Linux, for better or worse, is not going to displace Windows. We could debate the technical merits all day, it doesn't change the reality of the situation. The time and energy would be better spent trying to get MS to change, rather than calling them M$ and feeling smug. :)

  118. Re:This has become so common it isn't news anymore by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    Upgrading from W10 to W7 currently makes sense, as long as the computer will be replaced by 2020; at least it makes more sense than arbitrarily slapping W10 on old boxes. I don't want the OS on my W7 laptop to change, for example.

    For me, it comes under the heading of things I don't like but aren't going to do anything serious about, since I figure I have to pick my fights and decide what's important. The basic problem is that Windows is a monopoly, and people are going to use it pretty well no matter what, so we're all vulnerable to whatever stupid thing Microsoft decides to do. If Linux actually did displace Windows (such as if I managed to get a favor from the magic OS fairy, that being about as likely as any other reason), there would at least be competition between distros so that couldn't happen.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes