Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Announces 'Cumulative' Updates Will Become Mandatory For Windows 7 and 8.1 (microsoft.com)
Microsoft's now changing the way updates are delivered for Windows 7 and 8.1. Slashdot reader JustAnotherOldGuy writes: Microsoft's Senior Product Marketing Manager Nathan Mercer just announced that, "From October 2016 onwards, Windows will release a single Monthly Rollup that addresses both security issues and reliability issues in a single update... Each month's rollup will supersede the previous month's rollup, so there will always be only one update required for your Windows PCs to get current."
What this means is that individual patches will no longer be available after October 2016, and Windows 7 and Windows 8 users will now only have two choices: stop updating completely and leave your computers vulnerable to security holes, or accept everything single thing Microsoft sends you whether you want it or not.
Microsoft says their new approach "increases Windows operating system reliability, by eliminating update fragmentation and providing more proactive patches for known issues." They added that "Several update types aren't included in a rollup, such as those for Servicing Stack and Adobe Flash," and that "the .NET Framework will also follow the Monthly Rollup model." According to Microsoft's blog post, they'll also be releasing a monthly "security-only" update, but again, "individual patches will no longer be available".
What this means is that individual patches will no longer be available after October 2016, and Windows 7 and Windows 8 users will now only have two choices: stop updating completely and leave your computers vulnerable to security holes, or accept everything single thing Microsoft sends you whether you want it or not.
Microsoft says their new approach "increases Windows operating system reliability, by eliminating update fragmentation and providing more proactive patches for known issues." They added that "Several update types aren't included in a rollup, such as those for Servicing Stack and Adobe Flash," and that "the .NET Framework will also follow the Monthly Rollup model." According to Microsoft's blog post, they'll also be releasing a monthly "security-only" update, but again, "individual patches will no longer be available".
I guess they really didn't like people removing telemetry KB updates.
Great, now users can't block telemetry and other unwanted updates without disabling updates altogether.
Do they think that everyone is stupid?
I don't know if you've seen any national news int he past 6 months or so...
I don't respond to AC's.
Stop using Windows.
People bought Windows 7/8/8.1 with certain expectations, including the ability to opt out of a given update.
Having a monthly roll-up is generally a good idea for most customers, at least in those months with no "bad patches" (grrr). After all, that's how Apple has been doing things for its iOS and MacOS (formerly MacOXS) updates for years. If I recall, that's how they handled updates for the original MacOS (1980s-1990s) as well, except that it wasn't on a monthly cycle.
However, to suddenly change the rules mid-stream is bad PR when it comes to business customers.
At the very least, they should have a registry-key or group-policy that you can put in to "go back to doing things the old way," at least for "Enterprise," "Pro," and "Ultimate" editions.
Oh, to make things worse, they didn't announce this until AFTER the free Windows 10 upgrade period is over. Users who kept Windows 7/8/8.1 specifically so they could manage updates individually are going to be calling "foul" over this.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
we have certain patches that cause issues on our systems and others that are fine?
Even if patches are all installed as a single block, there's going to be problems if users aren't remove individual KBs as needed.
Microsoft wants to make using older versions of Windows as annoying as possible for IT departments, to try to push us to move to Windows 10.
Corporate IT departments tend to be the biggest holdouts for moving to new versions of Windows. If a business is running fine on Windows 7, there is ZERO reason beyond security updates to move to Windows 10. Now they're giving us an artificial reason: If a rolled up update breaks something, we have to roll back the ENTIRE batch. Even any included security updates.
Microsoft wants their licensing revenue, and they want fewer versions of Windows to support. This is their play.
Microsoft says their new approach "increases Windows operating system's ability to send telemetry data by pushing such functionality even on those users who up to now were able to avoid them by not installing the corresponding patches."
FTFY
I really wonder if this would go well with major corporations since they usually pick only individual updates and exclude some that may cause interference with other systems.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
With the number of absolutely fucking BROKEN updates that brick machines that have been pushed down the pipes, this is just going to send machines into a fucking nightmarish hell of instability.
will be jumping of joy with this.
Lets break all our business applications due to an update that can't be tested before hand and that is mandatory.
Just great.
Agreed. I've left Windows Update completely off since the first appearance of GWX. So how exactly did I get an unsolicited 447-megabyte installation of Silverlight 5.1.50428.0 on August 6? I still run Security Essentials scans every so often, and I allow to update its malware definitions each time. I'm guessing that's where the Silverlight installation came from. Must be one of those "malware definitions."
Clearly a monthly rollup is the right thing to do, considering how long it takes to bring a new Windows installation up to speed. But given their track record, I'd be crazy to allow Microsoft to make changes to my system that can't be rolled back. It would be different if I could trust them to act in my interests in addition to their own. Instead, the continuous stream of lies and incompetence we've seen from the Windows Update team over the past couple of years, including a number of "bugs" and "mistakes" whose effects suspiciously seem to accrue exclusively to Microsoft's benefit, have made it inadvisable to do so.
It's not the policy that annoys me, it's the bullshit.
It would have been nice if the submitter and Slashdot editor would have taken the time to actually read/report the rest of the blog posting:
"Security-only updates
Also from October 2016 onwards, Windows will release a single Security-only update. This update collects all of the security patches for that month into a single update. Unlike the Monthly Rollup, the Security-only update will only include new security patches that are released for that month"
That sounds like a good solution for the rest of us who don't want all of the other "performance improvement" patches.
If your webcam driver relies on some undocumented quirk, and that changes, then the onus is on the webcam vendor to release a driver that follows better practices.
What if my webcam driver requires that the video be mpeg compressed?
I am literally amazed that you brought up webcams given that Microsoft literally just broke a million of them for windows 10 users several days ago
"His name was James Damore."
I absolutely understand why you'd say that. I've done that. However, the first thing the bad guys do when they want to break into a system is check for unpatched software. If you're running versions with known vulnerabilities, that makes things really easy for the bad guys.
So what can you do? For me, I use Linux and OS X. Yeah, if you're the type of person who enjoys fiddling with the registry, there's a learning curve. On the other hand, if you normally open browser when you sit down at your computer, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera are pretty much the same on any desktop OS.
On the rare chance you happen to have a hardware configuration that doesn't work, there are already channels (through your MS support rep) to properly report it and get a fix.
Whatever they're paying you, it's not enough.
Take that however you wish.
This is the last straw for me, and I fundamentally don't trust Microsoft anymore.
I wasn't crazy about Windows 10 when it first came out. Its the first Windows with monetization and spyware baked in. I also find it much buggier then previous versions, as if they have cut their testing.
The big change is they now seem to view 7 and 8 users as freeloaders and are willing to damage their experience to get them to 10. I think in Microsoft's view if you have a Windows install that isn't using their app store and seeing their ads in the start menu, you don't matter. This change is part of a broader pattern of screwing their users that started with the hard sell on Windows 10 updates.
They have altered the deal, and anyone who runs Windows now needs to pray that they don't alter it any further.
The map is not the territory.