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Microsoft Has Broken Millions Of Webcams With Windows 10 Anniversary Update (thurrott.com)
The Anniversary Update which Microsoft rolled out to Windows 10 users earlier this month has broken millions of webcams, the company said on Friday. The problem is that after installing the update, the company added, Windows no longer allows USB webcams to use MJPEG or H264 encoding processes, and only supports YUY2 encoding. Microsoft says it introduced the changes to prevent an issue that was resulting in duplication of encoding the stream (poor performance). If you're facing the issue, there's a workaround (via Thurrott.com): Rafael has figured out a workaround that should hopefully stop the freezing issue; if you are comfortable tweaking the registry, make this change. HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows Media Foundation\Platform, add DWORD "EnableFrameServerMode" and set to 0
Headaches.
Thursday I did an emergency install of Ubuntu MATE 16.04 LTS on an old DELL laptop because Windows 10 suddenly couldn't manage to light up the built-in screen anymore.
"Microsoft Has Broken Millions of Computers With Windows 10 Anniversary Update"...
H.264? There are evil patents associated with that right?
This just sounds like Microsoft is trying to act like a positive in the freedom dimension Linux distro by refusing to support that evil patenty thing and by refusing to support webcams, which we all know could be used as NSA backdoors and are therefore evil.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
I mean, I get it. I get that you don't want to support more than one platform or configuration at any given moment in time. It's not fun having to regression test against a billion third-party devices, and it's not cool to QA things that work fine on your machine - and in a DevOps world, you don't have to - but please, find someone in your office with a little grey in his beard, and ask them, just once, about writing software with the user's needs in mind, not just your manager's desire to cut support costs.
It wasn't that long ago that software that worked, continued to work until the end user broke it by changing something. Now the users aren't breaking things -- but you are. Why?
Would it seriously be too much to ask if, in exchange for no longer being able to receive technical support (because technically, a working configuration that isn't "the newest version" is unsupported in this brave new world Nadella's created for us), users be permitted to not change already-working configurations?
I see. Because squirting 720p or 1080p video as uncompressed YUYV over a USB2 link never results in performance problems...
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
This is a security update to prevent government spying on citizens.
Memo to the NSA: You will have to try harder to spy on people through their webcams.
Fun for everyone!!! Well, except you.
So I had plenty of issues after Anniversary edition update. Sound issues, choppy scrolling again in Chrome. Finicky touchpad with jitter and freeze. I finally decided it was time to try a Linux distro. Yes, I have had plenty of issues with Linux distro's in the past. But this time not a one, and besides that my scanner that didn't work in Windows 10 now works in Ubuntu. Sorry but I think having to endure more problems every six months or so on yet another Windows 10 roll out is just too much.
The real reason, it was interfering with the NSA backdoor that watches you sleep.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
How about Microsoft be held accountable for recklessly and possibly unlawfully disabling functionality in personal computers that people paid for and have a right to use?
When are these criminal enterprises EVER going to be held accountable for their crimes?
Install Linux, no drivers needed to be installed
Because the USB device didn't even get recognized at all? ;)
And then he got sued by Parker Brothers.
I rolled it back for multiple reasons. The webcam was completely unrelated. NordVPN client wouldn't connect, and HFS partition disappeared. I liked half of the new features, but the other half were broken things. I can't work with an update like that when I'm not at home for half a year. Luckily it rolled back easily.
There was no performance issue - the problem was that multiple applications could not access the camera at once, and it was important to fix this.
Quoting:
" It was important for us to enable concurrent camera access, so Windows Hello, Microsoft Hololens and other products and features could reliably assume that the camera would be available at any given time, regardless of what other applications may be accessing it. "
https://social.msdn.microsoft....
Which is of great comfort to the owners of medical imagers that are now junk unless someone catches and rolls back the anniversary edition. There is claimed to be a fix in the pipe.
What is that you have there? ... yes.
It's my computer with windows 10 installed.
So a expensive space heater?
At least Windows 10 doesn't have systemd yet.
(It's probably coming).
Because software QA and validation is for chumps!
This is exactly why, when setting up a new computer for my grandma, I shelled out for a Windows 10 Enterprise with CBB servicing (Current Branch for Business). Sure, I've had to eat Ramen for the last month, but it's been totally worth it because my grandma's webcam is still working fine.
Be right back, she can't get Pogo games working again.
It was an old Memorex USB flatbed scanner. Windows wouldn't allow the old drivers and there were no new drivers, and driver compatibility mode or whatever it's called still wouldn't allow the drivers. No problem plugging anything into Linux. I haven't looked back since.
...so this is now how the individual Windows updates come out now? Public bulletins with users mentioning fast fixes... hmm.. there's another OS that did that in the past and MS said that it was a horrid OS with no concern for security or usability... Lin... Line.... L-something.
Psh.
Because the USB device didn't even get recognized at all? ;)
So you jest but compliant USB Video Class devices (read: webcams) have been supported since 2008. It's actually a standard much like you plug in any USB keyboard, mouse, pendrive etc. and it usually works. It's quite amazing that Microsoft managed to break such a widely adopted standard. I'm guess they're just setting the standard for what "supported lifetime" you'll have before Windows 10 refuses to run.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I actually had issues with an old flatbed scanner that only had drivers for XP, too. But a new scanner was in order anyways... all I did was documents, so I got one for that.
This was a compatibility update that makes it easier for the NSA to spy through people's webcams.
No it wasn't! It wasn't wasn't! Psh if you'd only read the rollup description you would see that it was a "performance enhancement". Ghawd! :>
Older versions of Windows have a "Favorites" sub-menu on the left side of File Explorer. When I had to convert to Windows 10 at work, the "Favorites" links were automatically migrated into something called the "Quick Access" (QA) menu. So far so good: it converted old stuff into its new convention.
However, "Favorites" used alias names, similar to naming a Windows Shortcut. But QA doesn't (at least not by default). Instead, QA uses the last actual folder name in the path as the displayed title.
I thought QA simply rudely renamed my Favorites titles, so I right-clicked on them to "fix" the titles. Turns out I wasn't looking at an alias, but the live folder name.
The result is I inadvertently renamed network folders used by hundreds of employees! Of course trouble-tickets started popping up like pop-corn. I put two and two together, and quickly renamed them back, and then went for a walk to dry off the sweat.
Table-ized A.I.
I don't suppose you've actually ever used one of these devices. It would not surprise me. Lemming trolls whine about Linux users being so cheap and backwards when that really describes themselves.
A great number of webcams simply conform to the USB spec.
No "special driver" required.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Hacker pervs and NSA hardest hit!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
90s? Were you even alive in the 90s? A camera that old would probably have something like a parallel port or rs-232 port.
Which reminds me... did they ever stop putting those warnings for Windows on USB devices? "don't plug it in before you install the driver"
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
1991 - the first webcam - operated until 2001
1994 - the first commercial webcam - Logitech's QuickCam
1996 - USB makes its debut
Judging by your user ID I guess you were alive in the 1990s, you just apparently werent aware in the 1990s.
"His name was James Damore."
Scanners have been one of the biggest rip offs in the Windows update game. I had a very good flatbed scanner I had inherited that worked as late as Windows 2000, but when I upgraded to XP, for some reason I couldn't get the drivers to work properly. I managed to get it working properly once, and when I rebooted, it wouldn't see the scanner any more. I came to the conclusion that the drivers themselves must be checking out the windows version, since the driver models between 2k and XP are all but identical.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
He bought that account. A few years back a lot of the low UID account holders sold their accounts off. For some reason people bought them!
The basic problem was that the developers at Microsoft don't understand who uses their OS and why. They had 5 use cases when they were developing their new feature, but forgot about the 50,000 use cases that already exist, unknown to the development staff.
"We changed an API's behavior because of this new feature that nobody cares about, which broke almost every imaging device attached to the OS" reeks of poor engineering management.
Another reason why Windows is not ready for the desktop.
Grandma runs desktop Linux just fine.
This is rather insightful. I may be a Linux fan but there was a time when I would have readily admitted Grandma would have an easier time with Windows than with Linux (assuming someone competently preinstalled one or the other for her use). This surely started to change with the unusability of Windows 8 and now, with all the Windows 10 issues, I would not like to be on the receiving end of Grandma's support calls.
My wife (who is a grandma, by the way) uses a Linux distro that I installed and maintain for her (maintenance means installing updates once in a while). She neither knows nor cares that it's Linux and not Windows. It "just works" for her rather basic needs, and if she some day requires more advanced features, they're all available.
I have to thank Microsoft for my scanner. Without them I probably wouldn't even have one.
My parents had a very nice, high end scanner that they used for years until Windows stopped working with the driver, and the manufacturer stopped making drivers for new windows versions. Luckily it works great on my Linux box though with no driver's or setup required (after I installed the old SCSI card it came with... That worked straight out of the box too)
Scanner is now about 20 years old and works better than many modern ones (and does legal paper too which is a rare feature)
You say that, but on Windows even pen drives are a pain with pop-ups that say it's installing drivers, even if the same pen drive has been in the computer before on a different USB port. Drivers? For a pen drive? Really?
One of the reasons I prefer Linux. Everything "just works".
Of course you don't know if it will actually work with Windows....
No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink"...
We apologise for the fault in this comment. Those responsible have been sacked.
Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretti nasti...
We apologise again for the fault in this comment. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
Back when I still used windows, pre-2010, I had a scanner (Canon Flatbed LiDE 20) that had worked perfectly under XP, but when I upgraded to 7 and went to 64 bit, no joy with the scanner.. However, since I had an Ubuntu Virtualbox VM on Windows, I'd fire up the VM, connect the scanner to the VM via the Virtualbox device pulldown and voila!! do my scanning in Linux... Bottom Line: devices generally work better in Linux... I feel another "FUCK MICROSOFT" wave coming on.....
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
Microsoft is getting like Gentoo
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
This new CEO of Microsoft better wise up pretty quick about how to run that company, because they way they have been handling their OS as of late is like begging people to sue them.
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
Oh, so that is why they broke it - they were thinking of the children.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Actually, Linux had better support for a number of webcams in the '90s. Practically any cam with a BT848 on the interface card worked great. In many cases, the same hardware on Windows was crashy or had a poor framerate due to crappy drivers.
And this is why cumulative, mandatory, updates are a BAD THING.
It's like they're not even trying now to hide it anymore. They have pretty much openly declared themselves to be hostile to users with a lot of forced updates that benefit not the user but themselves. But MS fanboys will still lap it up and somehow say it's a good thing.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
VueScan? Just works.
I have no stake in this. I am just a happy customer.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
This surely started to change with the unusability of Windows 8
You need to view that from a different lens. The main usability issue of Windows 8 was that it broke what we were used to, hid all of the configuration features that we like, and creating jarring discontinuities in multitasking workflows that we commonly use.
We being geeks found it a step backwards.
Grandma on the other hand likely had no issue what so ever. Windows 8 was really easy for someone to pick up and use. However it was a jarring screwup for the power user.
Grandma on the other hand likely had no issue what so ever. Windows 8 was really easy for someone to pick up and use. However it was a jarring screwup for the power user.
My take: Windows 8 (esp. pre-8.1) was, arugably, a decent UI for a total blank slate user. It was a mildly annoying UI for a hard-core power user. It was, however, a complete and total disaster for the hundreds of secretaries and teachers I was dealing with at the time who were just barely computer savvy, but had at that point accumulated 15-20 years of hard-earned "Start Menu like this, click this/double-click that, files work this way" folk wisdom, and Win8 broke rather a lot of that.
Think of all the people they're protecting from unauthorised web cam snooping!
Webcams were pretty niche until USB finally took off which was in 1998. I've got a few very old webcams. None of them work in Windows after XP, some didn't make it past 98/ME. Linux support is spotty. Several of them used propriety image compression techniques which were never fully reverse-engineered, so while Linux can see them, you can't really pull an image off of them, or if you can only a few low resolution modes work. The only one that really works in Linux as well as it did in Windows is an old Logitech Quickcam, though the last time I had it plugged in the plastic lens had clouded to the point where the image was almost useless. To be honest, I'm not even sure why I still have all these webcams.
I have to disagree. Windows 8 seemed to assume that you had been using Windows long enough to know that to launch a program you had to click on the bottom left of the screen [on the start button], and to search for a program you could start typing [in the search box], and thot you would still know to do that even with the visual elements removed. If you weren't familiar with Windows, you'd be hopelessly lost*. As an experienced Windows user I actually didn't mind the Windows 8 interface as much as a lot of people did, but it certainly seemed like it assumed you were coming into it with a bit of Windows tribal knowledge.
*One of my favorite things to do during the initial Windows 8 preview releases was to challenge experienced Windows users to open Notepad without using the keyboard. The results were usually entertaining and sometimes hilarious.
If you weren't familiar with Windows, you'd be hopelessly lost*
With only 4 clickable elements on the screen on a fresh install "hopeless" is not the word I'd use. "Mildly inconvenienced" is a far better one. Seriously give the user a real problem, like find out how to close a metro app by sliding in the top left of the screen and dragging an app down and waiting for it to flip over. Counter intuitive as shit!
By comparison most users of a laptop / tablet device with a touch screen will find themselves opening the start many accidentally due to shitty placement of the windows button (even on premier devices like the Surface 3 Pro).
*One of my favorite things to do during the initial Windows 8 preview releases was to challenge experienced Windows users to open Notepad without using the keyboard.
Yes get a user to start some program that is rarely used by general users and actively hidden by default due to being replaced with alternate note taking applications in windows. What a laugh.
Now a more realistic use case: You just installed Office, how do you start it? Oh look it's highlighted as a new app in the start menu in a different colour showing you exactly where to click.
Don't be convoluted, and don't tell grandma to use notepad or she may get confused and stop feeding you delicious sweets.
You'd think that Microsoft would be able to query it's installed base via whatever Win10 was collecting and figure out how people were using a feature. Either they can't, or nobody thought of it.
I can't quite tell what you're asking. Are you asking if I've used a Linux distro? Yes... a significant portion of my work career involved using (and sys admin stuff, too) SLES 9.x+ and RHEL 4.x+, in addition to AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, and Windows. I've personally run OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Mint, Elementary, and Fedora. I currently have a Elementary on a laptop (personal use), in a VM (contract work), RHEL 6 and 7 in VMs (full time job), and use a MBP for work. Which I wish ran a Linux distro, but I can't. :)
As for the devices themselves ... most of the unrecognized issues I've run into, to be fair, are with wireless network dongles, and it was a while ago. I was joking. I haven't had trouble lately, though I didn't even try to get my Fujitsu ScanSnap s1300i (according to link, it's technically possible, but looks like too much of a pain).
But, due to some other software restrictions, I really haven't used Linux as my primary home computer for a while, so I haven't been exposed to trying to use too many USB devices lately.
In reality, I would guess that Linux is a better bet with older USB stuff that conformed to standards, Windows with newer (but Linux will probably work, too, either out of the box or with some effort).
Oh, in the past I'd also run into annoying issues with USB drives and caching if you forget to eject, which I never ran into with Windows (though I've heard it's theoretically possible to encounter it).