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Samsung: Don't install Windows 10 (theregister.co.uk)

Posted by msmash on from the curious-case-of-Windows-10-updates dept.

An anonymous reader shares an article on The Register: Samsung is advising customers against succumbing to Microsoft's nagging and installing Windows 10. The consumer electronics giant's support staff have admitted drivers for its PCs still don't work with Microsoft's newest operating system and told customers they should simply not make the upgrade. That's nearly a year after Microsoft released Windows 10 and with a month to go until its successor -- Windows 10 Anniversary Update -- lands. Samsung's customers have complained repeatedly during the last 12 months of being either unable to install Microsoft's operating system on their machines or Windows 10 not working properly with components if they do succeed. However, with the one-year anniversary fast approaching it seems neither of these tech giants have succeeded in solving these persistent problems.

44 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Problem here seems to be Samsung? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Maybe if they weren't so far up Cook's ass, they'd take the time to write some new drivers. Or even write older drivers to spec, since they should work with Windows 10 too.

    1. Re:Problem here seems to be Samsung? by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Maybe if they weren't so far up Cook's ass, they'd take the time to write some new drivers. Or even write older drivers to spec, since they should work with Windows 10 too.

      In what way is Samsung up Cook's ass? I assume we're talking about Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, competitor to Samsung on many things including phones, tablets, laptops and PCs, and supplier on other things (SSDs, RAM).

      Samsung isn't going to be writing drivers for Broadcom chips, only Broadcom can do that. No doubt Broadcom would like to be paid for it, since they have recently exited the 802.11 business (http://www.macrumors.com/2016/03/18/apple-supplier-broadcom-wi-fi-chip-business/), they probably have let most of that staff go or re-org'd them on to something else. I'm sure that BCM is just one component lacking driver support, but outside of SSDs which don't usually need drivers, it is unclear that Samsung is on the hook to write any drivers at all, but would have to pay someone else to do it, and they don't want to because you've already spent that money and what's in it for them exactly?

      This is why linux people get so bent out of shape over proprietary drivers being a blight. Companies protect those secrets until one day they disappear into the mist, leaving us all holding the bag.

    2. Re:Problem here seems to be Samsung? by Ravaldy · · Score: 2

      it is unclear that Samsung is on the hook to write any drivers at all

      How do you figure? The users aren't the ones who picked the chipset and put it into their hardware. Car companies have the same challenges and they don't point fingers at the supplier, instead they resolve the problem internally or work with another supplier to achieve the required results.

      I don't know that Samsung falls in this category but I've often seen H/W manufacturers put products on the market, undercutting the competition and then not accounting for the need to keep some $$ for ongoing support (OCZ, Saphire, Retail+...). For that reason I put the fault on the company that puts out the product. It's for them to setup deals with lasting support (within reason).

      This is why linux people get so bent out of shape over proprietary drivers being a blight

      No, they get bent out of shape because they can't run their crap at $0 cost. The corporate Linux techs get Linux certified hardware which comes with open source drivers. Last I checked Broadcom and Realtek both provide open source versions of their drivers.

  2. Which one to laugh at more? by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In this case, I think it's gotta be Samsung. Still no drivers after a year? Seriously?

    1. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by ledow · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Still no Windows 10 drivers after a year from release, for a cheap model of laptop they might have pushed out 5-7 years ago, which was only certified for Windows 7? Yeah, not really surprising.

      There are a LOT of manufacturer's out there committing exactly that "crime". It's got nothing to do with laziness - hell, in that time the manufacturer could have gone bankrupt - but it's got everything to do with the manufacturer just saying "that's an old chipset, we don't have 10 drivers. But for $50k...." and Samsung telling them to stick it up their bottom.

    2. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by ArchieBunker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The reason is simple. You don't make money writing drivers for hardware you've already sold.

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    3. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is a case of a bad headline and summary. The article refers only to one customer's laptop, but it makes it look like it applied to all laptops.

    4. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by RogueyWon · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not just Samsung. If anything, I'd give Samsung at least some credit (compared to a couple of their competitors) for being willing to talk about this.

      My parents have a ~5 year old Dell laptop. Back in November, they tried to move to Windows 10, but the machine locked into a BSOD-on-boot loop in the latter stages of the install. After a lot of digging into the problem, it turned out that the onboard graphics adapter for that particular model wasn't supported in Win10, so the OS crashed at the point it tried to initialise it. I had to travel 2 hours to get their PC to boot from the recovery partition and back into Windows 7.

      On Monday, the parents must have missed a step in the "dodge the near-forced update" dance, because the laptop decided it was going to move itself to Windows 10 again while they were out - with exactly the same result. Cue another two hours on the phone talking my Dad through yet another restore from the recovery partition. I'm normally happy to blame the parents for their self-inflicted PC woes, but in this case, MS have made dodging the update so hard for the average user that I can't really bring myself to do so.

      Their machine is not unique; it was from a fairly common line of low-end Dell laptops that was popular 5 years ago. There are plenty of similar tales in the Dell support forums.

      For what it's worth, I'm running Win10 on my own home desktop and while I had to do a bit of router-fettling to block the worst of the telemetry, I actually like the OS for day to day use. But then, I have a PC that can run it.

    5. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by Racemaniac · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sure, let's just continue junking perfectly working hardware after a couple of years, i'm sure nature will be able to handle it (and those poor chinese workers that'll end up having to "recycle" it too)

    6. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by mrchaotica · · Score: 4, Funny

      I've been happily upgrading to Windows 10...

      I think your post was a lie, not because I think you're wrong about Samsung hardware support, but because Windows 10 is not an upgrade and no reasonable person install it "happily!"

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    7. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by SQLGuru · · Score: 5, Informative

      I have a 6yo laptop (Dell, not Samsung) that is on the "Windows 10 not supported" list for Dell and Win10 works just fine. Bash them all you want, but MS does a decent job of supporting really old hardware......in spite of the manufacturers not updating their drivers.

    8. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by cdrudge · · Score: 2

      What are you talking about? I'm super excited to try out Gingerbread now that new updates are rolling out for my Samsung Android phone.

    9. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 4, Informative

      >> Windows 10 is not an upgrade and no reasonable person install it "happily!"

      "Happily" because the start-up time (especially on old machines) is worth the upgrade. I typically use these machines to hop on line, stream a movie or some TV episodes down to a TV, and that's about it. The automatic updates don't bother me - I want those because I sometimes access some pretty shady sites to get my material - and I know how to turn the telemetry information off. And what I really want - the ability to run this hardware until it dies, rather than Microsoft eventually pulls patch support for Windows 7/8 - is now a couple of years closer to reality.

      The only thing I don't understand is no Vista->Windows 10 upgrades. Some of my machines really are that old, and I'm considering burning some of the Windows 7 licenses I never used just to get those rebuilt and into the modern era. (Meanwhile, I'm teaching my kids about Raspberry Pi-based Linux systems and getting them to do as much work as they can on Google docs, so hopefully Windows 10 will be the last Windows generation my home network has to support.)

    10. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by idontgno · · Score: 3, Funny

      Indeed, for they will not be on speaking terms with me after I render their PC essentially useless

      In other words, "problem solved."

      Jo Carson's Law of Competence: "Be careful what you get good at doin' 'cause you'll be doin' it for the rest of your life"

      idontgno's corollary: "If you don't want to do something for the rest of your life, be bad at it."

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
    11. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by TemporalBeing · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The reason is simple. You don't make money writing drivers for hardware you've already sold.

      False. You don't directly make money writing drivers for hardware you've already sold.
      You do make money by encouraging buyers to come back due to your great support (including continuing to provide updated drivers) for products already sold.

      And yes, this is one reason why I haven't bought another tablet yet. I'm not seeing the kind of support I'd like to, even among higher end tablets.
      And yes, I especially would expect it with more traditional computers (laptops, desktops).

      --
      Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
    12. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2

      Well it applies one model of Samsung laptops not just one customer as you would hope that model uses the same hardware. It might also apply to any other models that use the same hardware. In the article it says specifically a Broadcom wireless card does not work however looking at the model number: NP-R590, Samsung lists the wireless card as Qualcomm Atheros so there might be some factual errors. Also the laptop is a 2010 model so it's an older laptop.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    13. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Still no Windows 10 drivers after a year from release, for a cheap model of laptop they might have pushed out 5-7 years ago, which was only certified for Windows 7? Yeah, not really surprising.

      Really? Not surprising? How hard is it to make a driver work with a certain driver model? No serious question. I'm on Windows 10 using some hardware from the XP era. Now I understand maybe the argument for Samsung attempting to force upgrades, but in terms of effort I think this is a poor excuse.

    14. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by flappinbooger · · Score: 2

      so hopefully Windows 10 will be the last Windows generation my home network has to support.)

      pretty sure Win10 will be the last windows you will have to support, actually.

      --
      Flappinbooger isn't my real name
    15. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by Streetlight · · Score: 2

      On Dell's web site it is recommended that my XPS 15 L502x not be upgraded to Win 10. Looking around the Internet I find lots of complaints from folks who have upgraded having trouble with various hardware features not working on their machines. Somewhere I read that these laptops used a particular model of the Intel chip that has a problem with Win 10 and a driver update won't fix it - the problem is built into the chip. This device was a top of the line PC when sold and if I remember correctly I spent something like $1,500 on it. We're not talking a cheap $400 throwaway device. To say the least I'm very upset with the situation and would hope Dell would make some kind of trade in offer on an up to date device that's appealing. At least I'm not getting nagging popups from Microsoft to update to Win 10.

      --
      In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
    16. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by geoskd · · Score: 4, Informative

      I have a 6yo laptop (Dell, not Samsung) that is on the "Windows 10 not supported" list for Dell and Win10 works just fine. Bash them all you want, but MS does a decent job of supporting really old hardware......in spite of the manufacturers not updating their drivers.

      6 years old is not "really old", even in the PC world. come back and talk when the new software works with hardware older than a decade.

      It should also be noted that continuing to support old hardware is really not all that difficult, as long as you have a compatibility layer that can interact with the old drivers (which MS does). It allows them to re-use almost all of their old drivers. The only reason most of this hardware remains on the "not windows 10 ready" list is because absolutely no one intends to ever test any of it to validate that it really does work right. Theres no money in it for anyone except Microsoft, why would anyone else waste their time and money, and Microsoft could blow away a billion dollars testing just the relatively common hardware out there, and it would not add very much value to their product, so they don't bother either.

      --
      I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
    17. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by geoskd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You do make money by encouraging buyers to come back due to your great support (including continuing to provide updated drivers) for products already sold.

      While nice sounding in theory, the marketing types have discovered through significant research that this simply isnt the case any more. People have very little brand loyalty these days. The few companies that are able to trade on it, do, but almost all of the established players burned their credibility long ago, and the cost of rebuilding that credibility is vastly more than the reputation would be worth. In short, electronics have become highly fungible. People don't expect them to last more than a few years, but they do expect them to be quite cheap. The few exceptions out there (like apple) are only one serious mis-step away from loosing their credibility and ending up wallowing in the mud with the rest of the players.

      --
      I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
    18. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by WheezyJoe · · Score: 2

      A better question is why Never10 or GWX Control panel weren't installed on it.

      Wouldn't have mattered since Microsoft has been actively circumventing any tools like those that disable the Win10 update prompts.

      Is that a fact? GWX Control Panel has been working for me. No nags, no installs, no update files taking up space on my drive.

      --
      Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
    19. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I wouldn't consider "Continuing to run it with Windows 7" "junking" the laptop...

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    20. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by obyom · · Score: 2

      >> and I know how to turn the telemetry information off.

      How, precisely, did you turn the telemetry information off?

    21. Re:Which one to laugh at more? by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      Exactly right.

      This is why, when family members/relatives ask for computer help, I offer to install Linux for them. When they take me up on it, I install Linux Mint KDE, and rarely do I have to provide any support. It "just works". As long as they just do web browsing, document writing, video playing, and other basic stuff like that and don't have some stupid proprietary software they insist on running, it works great for them. With Windows, you'll have to spend huge amounts of time being their IT support.

  3. Samsung is too busy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Samsung is too busy writing crappy replacements for all of the Google apps on Android, not updating their phones, screwing around with Tizen, etc. to both creating a proper set of drivers for their PCs. No surprise, they aren't good at updating anything they make. Oh, wait. They are good at adding advertisements to their older TVs: https://hardware.slashdot.org/...

  4. Users Just Expect Computers to "Work" by BoRegardless · · Score: 2

    Between MS Win10 nagging and failure of both hardware & software products to be secure (recent Windows laptops security issues), customers are being let down.

    I'm beginning to think Windows & the hardware is now on a downhill slide as it is just too complex to maintain.

    1. Re:Users Just Expect Computers to "Work" by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 2

      The problem is, software has bugs and users who expect computers to "work" aren't going to be diligent in getting patches since they don't care as long as it 'works". I fully support completely automatic Windows Update by default because of this.

      Though Microsoft has been... overly enthusiastic with pushing Windows 10, it's easy to see that, given they are incrementally improving security in each new OS version, they want as many people to migrate to 10 as soon as possible to gain the security benefits, and help them drop support for older versions sooner so they can focus on patching/improving the newer ones.

      failure of both hardware & software products to be secure (recent Windows laptops security issues),

      Can't blame MS for this though (you didn't but I want to make this clear). It's the suppliers of the broken third-party software that is to blame. Honestly Microsoft should throw some weight around to try and encourage vanilla Windows installs. Though there's a lot of money involved in installing shovelware onto new PCs.

    2. Re:Users Just Expect Computers to "Work" by Khyber · · Score: 2

      "given they are incrementally improving security in each new OS version"

      Which is why we just had a 0-day for every version of windows from 2000 on up?

      "Can't blame MS for this though"

      Yes, we can. It's their OS, they should've told manufacturers to either provide the drivers or don't gain certification. That simple.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  5. Plenty of Windows 10 comparibility by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Informative

    The headline implies that Samsung is telling all their customers not to upgrade any equipment to Windows 10. But reading the article, it looks like one customer got one email saying this. If you follow the link in the article, and try a few models out, there are indeed models that support Windows 10.

    In general though:
    1. What Windows 8 drivers do not work on Windows 10?
    Windows 8 was good about supporting Windows 7 drivers and even XP drivers. Video drivers art the ones that are usually an issue.
    2. Does the Windows 10 upgrade check driver availability before upgrading?

    1. Re:Plenty of Windows 10 comparibility by flyingfsck · · Score: 2

      "2. Does the Windows 10 upgrade check driver availability before upgrading?" Ha, ha, ha... snort... uhmm, sorry... This is from the same idiots that would happily ask whether to go online to find an ethernet driver.

      --
      Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
    2. Re:Plenty of Windows 10 comparibility by PRMan · · Score: 3, Informative

      Windows 8 does NOT support XP drivers. The driver model was changed in Vista. Maybe XP64 was ahead of the curve on that one, because it had a ton of driver issues rendering it nearly unusable, but for your average person on XP32, 8 has no guarantees whatsoever.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
  6. Re:First Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yeah. Your prize is a free copy of Windows 10, which you can't even install. Enjoy.

  7. FUD by neoritter · · Score: 2

    Seems like a FUD article. I was taken aback, since I'm about to upgrade my older tower PC this weekend (finally cleared enough space on the main SSD), but then I realized my newer PC with a Samsung SSD, is working just fine with Windows 10. I kind of doubt that the Samsung HDD on my old PC will have troubles.

    1. Re:FUD by neoritter · · Score: 2

      Also article is dealing with a 6+ year old laptop.

  8. That's what you get with non-standard hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Samsung has a long history of making their computer hardware slightly non-standard.
    Just enough that generic drivers don't recognize the Samsung versions as compatible.
    (They change PCI Vendor ID's and Hardware ID to custom values.
    In some cases they wire the chips in a non-standard way. E.g. a Wifi chip with 4 antenna's only has antenna 3 and 4 attached in stead of 1 and 2 as the manufacturer recommends. Bluetooth or Wifi enable switch is wired in reverse so on Samsung ON means OFF.)

    And their own Windows 7/8 drivers which, on their own, would work without issue in Windows 10 don't install on 10 because their setup programs explicitly test for the OS version and simply abort with a "non-supported OS" message.
    In some cases you can extract the actual driver from the setup and install it manually but for most users that is just too much voodoo required.

  9. Samsung by fluffernutter · · Score: 2

    ..says the company who wants us all to connect our TVs to the internet so we can see *their* advertising.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  10. Never Upgraded Windows on a Laptop by rpervinking · · Score: 4, Informative

    The only party interested in having Windows work well on their laptop is the manufacturer, and that only until the thing is sold. After that, forget it. And laptop hardware is crazy, with a different chip being switched into the middle of the production run because it saves them maybe 10 cents per unit. And they fix the driver to match. For the version of Windows they expect to be installing for initial sale. Period. So I just take whatever the damned thing comes with and leave it alone. That approach has worked for me since 1997 (Thinkpad 765D with Windows 95) and I'm sticking with it.

  11. Seems like Samsung is the problem by sjbe · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The consumer electronics giant's support staff have admitted drivers for its PCs still don't work with Microsoft's newest operating system and told customers they should simply not make the upgrade.

    So they've had nearly a year since Windows 10 was released and quite some time before that with betas to figure out how to make their drivers work. Sounds like the problem isn't with Windows 10 but with Samsung being unable to develop quality drivers. Plenty of other companies seem to have figured it out. Basically this tells me to avoid Samsung products. Windows 10 isn't without problems but by and large they don't seem to be technical ones but rather Microsoft being overly aggressive about pushing updates down our throats.

  12. Re:Driver hell is one reason why people buy Apple by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

    There have been times in the past that the latest version of Mac OS X wouldn't run on six year old Macs. I can't say if that's the case today or not, but I certainly wouldn't switch to Apple just to be sure that I can run Mac OS X 10.17 on a 2016 Mac mini in 2022.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  13. They're both right by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We probably should avoid Windows 10. We should also avoid Samsung products.

    --
    Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
  14. Re:Plenty of Windows 10 compatibility by MobyDisk · · Score: 2

    Whoops, thanks for the correction. I was thinking "The one before Windows 7" so naturally, my mind immediately skipped Vista.

  15. Re:First Post by NatasRevol · · Score: 2

    No, you're forced to install it.

    You just can't use it.

    --
    There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  16. Why This Doesn't Surprise Me by mschwanke97402 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Samsung, in general, have proven to me that they are not interested in after-the-sale product support. My first, and only, Samsung phone (early Android) saw no more updates within a year after its release date. The $1000 Samsung laptop I bought for Christmas in 2012 with Windows 7 never saw a proper set of Windows 8/8.1 drivers and there are no Windows 10 drivers at all.