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Ask Slashdot: How Will You Handle Microsoft's New 'Cumulative' Windows Updates? (slashdot.org)
Microsoft's announced they'll discontinue "individual patches" for Windows 7 and 8.1 (as well as Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012, and 2012 R2). Instead they'll have monthly "cumulative" rollups of each month's patches, and while there will be a separate "security-only" bundle each month, "individual patches will no longer be available." This has one anonymous Slashdot reader asking what's the alternative:
We've read about the changes coming to Windows Update in October 2016... But what happens when it's time to wipe and reload the OS? Or what about installing Windows on different hardware? Admittedly, there are useful non-security updates worth having, but plenty to avoid (e.g. telemetry).
How does one handle this challenge? Set up a personal WSUS box before October to sync all desired updates through October 2016? System images can work if you don't change primary hardware, but what if you do? Or should one just bend the knee to Microsoft...?
Should they use AutoPatcher? Switch to Linux? Or just disconnect their Windows boxes from the internet... Leave your answers in the comments. How do you plan to handle Microsoft's new 'cumulative' Windows Updates?
How does one handle this challenge? Set up a personal WSUS box before October to sync all desired updates through October 2016? System images can work if you don't change primary hardware, but what if you do? Or should one just bend the knee to Microsoft...?
Should they use AutoPatcher? Switch to Linux? Or just disconnect their Windows boxes from the internet... Leave your answers in the comments. How do you plan to handle Microsoft's new 'cumulative' Windows Updates?
But is Apple installing telemetry and all sorts of crap that spies on their users? That's why people want to be able to pick and choose which updates they install. My feeling is the only reason MS is doing it this way is to get that telemetry onto all the computers that refused to install it.
It is so sad to see it come to such a painful end. I actually bought Windows 1.0 in my youth and have had a machine running a Windows version ever since. I did manage to skip the most disastrous versions (ME, Vista, Bob and friends) and as a result had a pretty good run. By Windows 7 it had finally become a stable workhorse OS that, for a time, served me well as its owner and master.
With Windows 8.x and then 10 it became evident that Windows as an OS no longer served me as its (paid and rightful) owner but instead answered to an increasingly malevolent master who was working against my will and interests. Its aim was nothing other than to harvest and sell me, my identity, my movements, my thoughts, my keystrokes, as a product like any other meat based commodity. I knew I could not in good conscious willingly give myself over to such abuses. I concluded that Windows 7 would be my last Windows and in my personal view was THE last Windows as I knew the product all these years, with the things that came after no longer sharing a common purpose with those that came before.
While corrupting the Windows brand was bad even more nefarious was to take the Windows 7 the I own now away from me. The tried heartily to wear me down with deceptive pop-ups and then with malicious corrupting patches but, through great effort, I diligently thwarted them all. Now it seems the end has come, my paid copy of Windows 7 Professional will be corrupted by force or left to wither and be ravaged by wild dogs and the NSA in what I personally view to be a heinous crime against all humanity.
As a long term Microsoft customer, the sentiment I now associate most with the company is betrayal.
I will apply all the patches that the vendor supplies in an automated way where possible and where not, as soon as is practical. While it is true that a vendor could screw up a patch, it is also true that my hard drive could die, malware could get on my system, an other hardware or software problem could corrupt my data, or I could just screw up and delete data myself.
To protect myself from any of these occurrences, I keep regular backups. I take these backups at a frequency similar to the amount of data I am willing to lose in the event of any failure (including "evil" actions on behalf of my OS vendor.) For me the frequency of backups is generally daily.
Note that I use the term OS vendor instead of Microsoft here, this because I run several computers with several operating systems (Microsoft, Linux(s), others) and I have had them all screw up a patch.
Since I have chosen not to write or personally review the source code for all the software I use (because I don't have that kind of time), I choose to outsource that work to several vendors, one of which is Microsoft. Yes, there are risks to running software from Microsoft (or any other vendor), Microsoft may not have my best interests in mind. However their software meets my needs and I have made the calculation that the value the software provides outweighs the risks.
There a lot of complaints in this thread about this new *feature*, but hasn't the horse already escaped the barn? If you are using Windows, you are trusting them to do the right thing with your OS when you install it. How is this rolled up set of patches really going to change things? Either you trust them to do things right, or you go download *nix.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
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Linux user since more than 5 years.
But unfortunately thats not a solution for everybody.
I've been a Linux user for over 20 years and have watched it grow into something that could be a solution for a lot of people.
You're right, not everybody; I've often said in these forums that if you need or want to run Windows, go run Windows. I'm not here to try to make you change.
But the need to run Windows is, I think, often quite overstated. It's certainly the case when you have some mission-critical software that simply can't be replaced. It's true if you want to do certain classes of gaming. And sometimes it's true when you need 100% document compatibility with entities that insist on Microsoft Office.
My quibble is that there are many who want to run Windows but say they need to run Windows, when they very likely don't. If it's a want rather than a need, fine, go for it, but don't claim that your choice is truly based on Linux's inability to perform.
> Windows haters can do the same, in case it's over fake "security concerns" w.r.t. Windows 10, in which case, they need a one-way trip to Guantanamo Bay in order to learn what REAL invasion of privacy is. Fucking children.
You should probably look into what you agreed to send Microsoft in the EULA (hint: everything you ever do, say, everyone you know, who you communicate with, the contents of those communications, etc etc etc).
But keep going with that amazing comparison. You could write ad copy:
"Microsoft Windows: It's better than being detained indefinitely and tortured in a military prison on a communist island!"
That you have to compare a long term detainment and part time torture camp to the OS you bought and paid for shows just how Windows users will put up with anything. Ludicrous comparison to compare something you buy and pay for with indefinite detention.
As a counter for all the MS hate around here and all the Linux fans who think it will be taking over the world someday soon...
Windows 10 works just fine, I have it installed on over 20 computers, I've installed it on many more, it works very well...
I used Windows 7 the other day, it felt old all of a sudden, amazing when it felt so new just 7 years ago, but it is now out of date and the idea of staying on Win 7/8.1 is just not reasonable anymore...
Yes, you can use Linux if you want to, it has a purpose, but it won't be replacing Windows as the mass market desktop OS, well... ever...
Something else might, OS X could if Apple would licence it for use on other computers besides Macs, but really there isn't anything else for the mass market...