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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?
I run Linux. I keep a Windows system around for minor software that needs it, but I don't put sensitive information on it like mail or personal data.
Linux is your partner. Microsoft is your master. Choose wisely.
Sometimes the "writing on the wall" is blood spatter...
I kept Windows 7 to update my GPS maps, but I boot 99.9% of the time in Debian.
Since tye year 2000 times I had tried different Linux distros but never had enough motivation to leave windows.
Windows 10 provided enough stimulus.
I've been running Linux exclusively on all my own machines for 15 years or so now, so I won't be worrying about this at all. I do have to use Windows machines for work, but those are supplied and supported by my employer, so I don't have to worry about it there, either. Hooray!!
My wife's photography business currently runs on Windows 7. We can't accept the risk of Microsoft screwing up her production environment (Photoshop + Lightroom).
For now, we're going to stop installing Windows updates, and cross our fingers.
Once that starts seeming too risky, I'll look into moving Windows into a VM with limited Internet access, or we'll migrate to using a Mac for the photo editing.
Neither option is appealing. I haven't yet figured out how difficult it will be to get monitor color-calibration right if Windows is running on a VM inside Linux. And sufficiently powerful Macs are painfully expensive.
I'll be curious to see if Microsoft's overall strategy from the past year is going to pay off for them. They're literally driving previously satisfied customers into their competitors' arms.
Appy app apps guy is right - the future in everyone's mind is Apps, not some LUDDITE desktop application or "pre-App web app" -- but I think Microsoft is really dismissing how much legacy code is out there and is broken by various updates. I do systems integration work with an end user desktop focus, and there are _so many_ crappy IE-only, ActiveX or Java applet or Flash or Shockwave (!) monstrosities lurking in corporate IT shops everywhere. Most of it isn't even in-house developed - it was written by really expensive consultants who want another few million to modernize it.
It will be very interesting to see how they pull this off - whether there will be an exception for Enterprise, etc.
I will likely use the "security-only" bundle; and try to remove all rarely used Microsoft software other than the Windows 7. I already removed Java and Adobe; now will have to think about removing MS Office because, I foresee, in time the "security-only" bundle will stop patching office. Tim S.
I still consider Windows 7 as the best OS Microsoft ever made. As far as updates go I completely disabled them after the update gate fiasco. If you feel like me and had to disable windows updates because you can't trust them not to update your entire operating system then it's probably best to part ways, like a psychotic girlfriend that spies on your every move. Trust is a two way street. Once you break that trust the relationship can never be the same. Time for me to go back to Linux. As unrefined as it is, at least they're trying to do good things for their users instead of exploiting them. I'll never run a Mac OS or Google OS for the same reason. Microsoft didn't just cross the line, they got in a spaceship and flew light years past it at ludicrous speed.
Ideas: (partly a re-post from Stop updating completely? Methods and comments)
1) Autopatcher and WSUS Offline Update: Use Autopatcher until Microsoft begins its new system of hiding even more completely what it is doing with its updates. Kvasio said to use WSUS Offline Update, another community driven solution.
Apparently Microsoft approves of WSUS Offline Update. This is from the Microsoft web site: Update Offline Virtual Machine with PowerShell and WSUS Offline Update: Part 1
Update Offline Virtual Machine with PowerShell and WSUS Offline Update: Part 2
2) Windows on an isolated network: Don't allow any Microsoft operating system to have a connection to the internet. Use Linux on a separate computer on a separate network for internet connections. Use Bluetooth to communicate between the Windows OS network and the Linux network.
For Microsoft, convincing people that Windows is buggy is profitable. An article I wrote last year, Microsoft Windows XP "end of life", makes the point that Microsoft fixed 319+828+459=1,606 bugs in Windows XP since Windows XP SP1 was released. Now Microsoft says Windows XP is still too buggy to use. We have 16 computers running Windows XP and haven't had any problems. And software does not have an "end of life", it continues to do what it always did.
Do secret government agencies pay for vulnerabilities? Why do Adobe Flash and the Windows operating system have so many vulnerabilities? Do Adobe Systems and Microsoft sell vulnerabilities to secret government agencies and fix them when they are publicly discovered?
Get serious about recognizing abuse. Quoting this comment, with modifications: We've seen Microsoft's continuous stream of lies and incompetence... including a number of "bugs" and "mistakes" that appear deliberate.
Back in the days of XP SP1 I bought a laptop. It wanted to install a "security update" right away, but I put it off. wanting to get comfortable with my new computer and my new operating system first. I also used a live Linux CD on the computer a lot.And if you recall, these were the days that Microsoft was particularly vocal about their hatred for Linux. After about a month I finally told Windows that it could install the "Security Update". I didn't notice any obvious change in Windows, but I did see one big change with my laptop, it could no longer connect to the Internet when I ran my live CD!
I checked everything. The CD was still the same and still had the proper CRC checksum. I made another CD anyway but, as expected, the results were the same. After a lot of work I finally tracked down the problem. The laptop NIC, like all modern NICs, had a small eeprom on it that stored the MAC address (that's how they can mass produce NICs that all have unique MAC addresses). And it turns out that there is plenty of extra space in the eeprom not needed for the MAC address, and the NIC used that space to store start up configuration settings, and mine were now set to values that made no sense and kept the NIC from working properly. Interestingly, XP ignored how the NIC was configured and reconfigured it as it wanted so that the device would work. But Linux, which worked fine on the computer for a month, didn't suspect that anything was wrong and tried to use my hardware as it was configured.
Once I understood this I was able to run :Linux again. It was a pain, I had to manually issue some commands every time I booted the CD, but I was able to work around the problem. Eventually Linux code was changed to not trust configuration settings and configure the NIC in the same way that Windows did and I no longer had to manually reconfigure the NIC on every boot.
I'm a cautious computer user. I have a decent hardware firewall and I also use a good software firewall (not one from Microsoft). So now I was in a position where the only malware that had ever done me harm was a Microsoft Windows Update. It wasn't too hard to figure out how to not experience another problem like this one. I've never accepted a software update from the malware provider who screwed me since then. I never will. I have had no malware experiences since then. So how I'll deal with the new update policy is to leave my Windows settings just as they are and not let Microsoft break anything else.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Linux.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.