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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".
Microsoft has decided they own your computer, so (&*#^%$ em...
Been using Windows desktop since 3.1, mostly for work and gaming, helped move the games industry off DOS4GW to Windows a long time ago. And this sort of crap has moved me from Win 10 to dual boot Win10/Linux Mint, soon to remove the Win10 partition. I've moved almost my work onto Mint, only use Win10 when I have to run a Windows app, and the few left there I'll be exploring Wine or relocating into a Win10 VM. Steam provided great Linux versions of enough of my games I no longer need Windows, and my job is moving from C++ on Windows + Linux to JS on Azure & AWS, so no longer need Windows desktop for anything bur work corporate apps and have throwaway laptop for that. Good riddance.
Will be helping all interested friends make the same transition.
While I agree that is very much a downside. Patching is a mess today. Bringing up a brand new Windows 7 SP1 install and clicking on Check for Updates always leaves me with a "checking for updates" status for 12+ hours. Windows 7 has been patched so many times and it has been so long since they had a roll-up SP, that Windows Update is broken in its current form. It shouldn't be, but the architecture can't handle the plethora of things to check and dependencies any more.
I'll begrudgingly accept the loss of control for a much improved ability to actually bring a new system up.
I've been a Msft user since the earliest versions of MS-DOS, which means that I've put up with a lot of crap but kept on as things slowly improved. I have been burned by a number of updates over the years, so I install them manually after checking them out one by one. It's a pain, and some destructive stuff has slipped through from time to time, but I could always uninstall or fall back to a restore point if necessary. It would be nice if I could just trust Msft not to screw up my machine, but sadly, they haven't earned that trust. The choices are rather grim, as I don't want to forego security updates. I'm hoping there will be a large enough outcry that they back off before I have to move to another platform.
Does anyone know if there's a site out there that lists all of the KBs required to bring a bog-standard fresh Windows 7 install up to "Current As Of August 2016" minus the telemetry and GWX updates? I'd like to prepare for this change by downloading ALL of the necessary updates as offline installers, and keeping them archived locally. So that going forward, I can reinstall Windows 7 and patch it up to "Current As Of August 2016" levels.
Alternately if there's a Windows 7 Ultimate image with all of this shit slipstreamed, that would be even better. My image is from 2013 from Digital River.
Bringing up a brand new Windows 7 SP1 install and clicking on Check for Updates always leaves me with a "checking for updates" status for 12+ hours. Windows 7 has been patched so many times and it has been so long since they had a roll-up SP, that Windows Update is broken in its current form.
This is because Microsoft broke it on purpose to try to get more people onto windows 10.
..and here you are not only excusing microsoft for this intentional act of sabotage, you are using this intentional act of sabotage as a supporting argument for another intentional act of sabotage.
"His name was James Damore."
Monthly roll up is a good idea for a trusted and responsible company. It's a bad idea for Microsoft though.
We've stopped installing almost all recent updates from MS anyway, since we basically now consider them more dangerous than not patching anything except clearly identified security vulnerabilities.
My concern with the new plan is whether any machines that need a fresh installation after October will no longer be able to download the currently available updates of our choice. If Microsoft make the Windows Update system only work with the new monthly roll-ups and won't supply the previous individual patches any more, that would be significantly worse than just not offering any new patches outside of the monthly roll-ups.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.