Microsoft is Making It Easy To Stop Windows 10 Rebooting Your PC Randomly For Updates (theverge.com)

Tom Warren, writing for The Verge: Microsoft is unveiling some changes to the way Windows Updates are applied to Windows 10 PCs with the upcoming Creators Update. The software giant has long been criticized by Windows 10 users for its aggressive approach to applying updates, and it's introducing some new options to prevent annoying reboots. "What we heard back most explicitly was that you want more control over when Windows 10 installs updates," admits John Cable, Microsoft's Windows director of program management. "We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive if they happen at the wrong time." To stop these random reboots, Microsoft is adding a new snooze option that appears in a new prompt to let you know there's a Windows 10 update available. Snooze will stop an update installing for three days, and give you time to save any crucial work.

Comments

Uhh

[Anonymous Coward]

How nice of them?

Re:Uhh

[Anonymous Coward]

The Windows Operating System was actually designed for frogs.
"Reboot!" "Reboot!" "Reboot!" "Reboot!" ...

Re:Uhh

[Z00L00K]

And what would happen if the Snooze button is hidden by some other service or if it disrupts another service at an unexpected moment? How many of us has been accidentally selecting "OK" on something just because we were typing some text in a word processing or something and don't know what we did click "OK" for?

Re:Uhh

[fahrbot-bot]

The Windows Operating System was actually designed for frogs. "Reboot!" "Reboot!" "Reboot!" "Reboot!" ...

That explains things. I put my PC in a pot of water, slowly raised it to a boil and my PC never jumped out.

Re:Uhh

[Anonymous Coward]

And what would happen if the Snooze button is hidden by some other service or if it disrupts another service at an unexpected moment?

More worrisome: you forgot you had a 3-day delayed update pending and get an unexpected delayed update in teh middle of something else important. A longer delay doesn't solve the problem.

Re: Uhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Stupid winblows by Monkeyshit Corp is still popular I see. You lazy sadomasochistic dorks.

Re:Uhh

[unrtst]

Exactly...

$ uptime
  16:51:37 up 107 days, 5:01, 50 users, load average: 1.06, 1.25, 1.29

Even if that was much lower, 3 days is not enough. I shouldn't have to actively "snooze" it. I should be able to schedule a check for updates to only happen once a month, or any period of time I like, including never. Who's computer is it?

Re:Uhh

[Grishnakh]

3 days is not enough. I shouldn't have to actively "snooze" it. I should be able to schedule a check for updates to only happen once a month, or any period of time I like, including never. Who's computer is it?

3 days is far more than enough, and really too much IMO. It's not your computer; it's Microsoft's. You made that choice when you chose to install their OS, as you implicitly accepted all their terms and conditions and their way of managing the system, which includes annoying and frequent updates requiring reboots. So shut up and stop complaining when you refuse to vote with your feet (this isn't targeted just at you, but for anyone who chooses to use Windows). Complaining about something is useless, futile, and annoying when you absolutely refuse to make any change to alleviate your problem.

Re:Uhh

[infolation]

We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive

My head literally reels with the notion that they need to hear unexpected reboots are disruptive to know they're disruptive!!!! What??!!

Re:Uhh

[unrtst]

Complaining about something is useless, futile, and annoying when you absolutely refuse to make any change to alleviate your problem.

I thought it was fairly obvious I'm not running Windows, and I disagree anyway. Having complaints ignored, or barely recognized, again and again and again... sure, then it's time to move on to someone else that does listen, but complaining can be very useful.

Re:Uhh

[Grishnakh]

I thought it was fairly obvious I'm not running Windows, and I disagree anyway.

Yeah, unfortunately English makes it hard to differentiate between you-singular and you-plural (and in this case, 2nd person addressed to everyone in general), which is why I added the aside about my comment being addressed to anyone running Windows.

Having complaints ignored, or barely recognized, again and again and again... sure, then it's time to move on to someone else that does listen, but complaining can be very useful.

I think it should be fairly obvious by now that MS is not listening and does not care about consumers' complaints. And why should they? The OS is not the product, the user data is; why do you think they were giving the OS away for free? Moreover, MS updates have been a PITA for a very long time; they've only gotten more annoying and intrusive in the last few years. The idea that MS is suddenly going to change their ways and make their OS more convenient and privacy-respecting for consumers is pure lunacy.

Re:Uhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows has detected that the mouse has moved. Please restart for changes to take effect.

Re: Uhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft treats it like a desktop OS, not a server. For decades, when people would complain having to reboot every couple of months to clear various slowly leaking problems, the gist of their response was that as a desktop OS, expected usage was daily to weekly reboots, not months.

They don't expect 50 user impact on a desktop OS reboot, they expect 1 user impact.

Re:Uhh

[Askmum]

We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive

My head literally reels with the notion that they need to hear unexpected reboots are disruptive to know they're disruptive!!!! What??!!

In my experience, product managers and system operators are the least likely to understand what the user actually want.

Re: Uhh

[billyswong]

So Microsoft expect everyone buy a server license, just because he or she wants the PC do some overnight batch job? Or even worse, just because he or she got busy and worked overnight one day?

Re: Uhh

[Insanity Defense]

They have Stockholm Syndrome and don't know it.

Re:Uhh

[unicornzvi]

Exactly...

$ uptime 16:51:37 up 107 days, 5:01, 50 users, load average: 1.06, 1.25, 1.29

Even if that was much lower, 3 days is not enough. I shouldn't have to actively "snooze" it. I should be able to schedule a check for updates to only happen once a month, or any period of time I like, including never. Who's computer is it?

Actually you can do that, you need to go and edit the options in the task scheduler for windows reboot function, but you can do it. Personally I edited it to never reboot automatically.

I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Marxist Hacker 42]

More testing before rolling out upgrades would be nice. I've had one "unable to complete" for a few weeks now. Reboots the system, discovers the install doesn't fit the hardware, rolls back. Whole process takes about 30 minutes.

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Anonymous Coward]

100% reliable in VirtrualBox. Kind of a big surface. They have low VirtualBox installs because updates don't work not the other way around.

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft fired most their QA and instead began rolling out beta updates to consumers, companies then pay for the privilege of receiving only stable updates.

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[KiloByte]

update issues like the one you describe are happening to less 1 in 10,000 systems

In my testing, that's 2 in 2. On both of these, not every update fails, just somewhere around 2 in 3, but that's per version -- if a given update fails, it fails every time.

And from a glance at Slashdot, I'm not alone.

I pity those who actually have to do something important on Windows...

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Anonymous Coward]

The loop will not end. Install the right patch manually trough the Windows Update Catalog. I have been in that loop for once before, and it wasn't even a hardware specific patch.

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[spacepimp]

I've had this happen to about 15-20% of all Win 10 systems at my office. The entirety of the ones with issues are Microsoft Surface devices. I guess MS cannot test for all hardware, but why can't they do that for their own overpriced crap?

Your 1 in ten thousand public number is not accurate in my experience. Personally I've had three times with Win 10 where I had to do full rei-mages as a result of MS breaking their native driver or similar on my own Surface Pro 3 twice and once on my surfacebook.

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck beta.

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Applehu Akbar]

More testing before rolling out upgrades would be nice. I've had one "unable to complete" for a few weeks now. Reboots the system, discovers the install doesn't fit the hardware, rolls back. Whole process takes about 30 minutes.

This feature was introduced in Windows XP, and has been so popular that sometimes when you reboot a PC, you see a string of ten updates trudge away through their completion percentages, fail to install, and automatically get backed out. This gives you time for a nice lunch before having to get back to work on your still un-updated Windows box.

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[ScienceofSpock]

I pity those who actually have to do something important on Windows...

Nah, most of us with important stuff to do didn't upgrade past Win 7 SP1. We're fine, thanks.

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[denguydj]

Happened to me too. The fix is to open yes internet explorer and search for that KB number to manually download from their updates catalog that only works in internet explorer.... its also close to 1 gig file for the last one at least...

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Marxist Hacker 42]

It doesn't give me a KB number...but I'll look around.

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Grishnakh]

More testing before rolling out upgrades would be nice.

Lots of things "would be nice". It'd be nice if I could stop paying rent and just get to live in my house for free. It'd be nice if I didn't have to work for a living. It'd be nice if there was vaccination for cancer. It'd be nice if we built a nice Moon base with a fancy hotel for tourists, and I could go there for free for a week.

Lots of smaller things would be nice too: it'd be nice if Apple iPhones weren't overpriced and didn't have glued-in batteries and crappy screens and a crappy UI and still had headphone jacks. But Apple doesn't care about my opinion, so I don't buy their devices. It'd be nice if Jeeps weren't overpriced, horrifically ugly, poorly handling gas guzzlers, and instead were all very attractive, extremely reliable, and fuel-efficient small cars like I prefer. But Chrysler doesn't care about my opinion, so I don't buy Jeeps. It'd be nice if McDonald's only sold high-quality, healthy food. But McDonald's doesn't care about my opinion, so I don't eat there.

If having well-tested software is important to you, and having an OS that forces you to reboot and then wait 30 minutes to attempt a failed update, over and over again is something you don't like, then maybe your preferences are not aligned with Microsoft's, and you should look for another vendor.

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Grishnakh]

For now....
Before long, Win7 will no longer receive security updates, and it'll be just like WinXP. Plus there's the issue of older OSes not working on newer hardware because of a lack of drivers.

Re: I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Anonymous Coward]

Name your alternative that is "well-tested". But, if you say Linux...

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck /.

oh wait is that still a thing?

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[denguydj]

its under update history it will say something like tried to install update KB******** but failed will retry later.

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Grishnakh]

Exactly, and this is just how it should be. This is good for MS because it increases their profits, by screwing over the consumers, which is fine because they're perfectly willing to bend over and take it, so it'd be dumb for MS not to take advantage.

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Namarrgon]

Had a good one myself. Forced a reboot, spent 90 mins s..l..o..w..l..y installing the update, got to 94% then failed something and spent another 90 mins unrolling everything again - unusable for 3 hours. Repeat the next day, and the next. Clearing update caches, scouring logs for error codes, googling all the things, tearing hair - nothing helped, until I eventually found something that hinted at the actual cause: my EFI partition apparently wasn't quite big enough.

Re: I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Trogre]

That's a bit like asking them to name a well-tested zipper manufacturer, but not mention YKK.

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I'll have to check that out...

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[ScienceofSpock]

The "Older OS not working on newer hardware" thing is largely a myth, for the time being. The OS works just fine on newer hardware, where you run into trouble is installing in the first place.

The way it was described to me is something like this: The Win7 install media was built to look for drives in a specific way. Modern BIOS no longer present the drives that way, so Win7 doesn't see any drives to install to (Feel free to chime in or correct me if you're familiar with this stuff).The work around is to simply use an older machine. Put the drive in the older machine and start the install. when the Win7 installer reboots, shut the machine down, move the drive to the new machine and continue the install there. I just did this with my new machine and it works like a charm.

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[rtb61]

The fix is to uninstall windows 10 and install windows 7 and disable updates and that is in reality is the one and only fix. Well, whoops I am wrong, there are two others fixes, use a fire wall configure to block all M$ IP addresses and the other is never ever to plug a windows 10 box to the internet. Those are you choices. The other choice is not a choice, bend over and drop your pants because M$ now controls your back door.

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Bite The Pillow]

I have a brainless mouse age 10, that randomly right clicks because the driver is reinstalled every few seconds. Generic HID, no special features, worked fine just before the reboot.

No excuse.

Re: I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you don't understand how things work.

It's whether there's a driver for your storage controller. That's why they present the option to specify storage drivers on the drive selection page. An old raid card might have a driver in win 7 but not 10, or it might be new and in win10 but not win7.

The driver can be slipstreamed into the installation media ahead of time and the drives will then automatically be found.

I can only guess swapping hard drive to another PC during installation is to get usb3 transfer speeds (Support added in win 8) on initial copy, or problems booting from USB (really shitty bios).

Re:I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Insanity Defense]

Update made it so the keyboard had to be unplugged and plugged back in after typing 2-5 characters.

Update blocked network access.

Update blocked Terminal Software from network access.

Update blocking all department computers on a Monday morning for 2 hours

In my personal life no more MS products. Can ya guess why? Microsoft can't seem to understand.

Re: I'd rather they put more money into bug fixing

[Anonymous Coward]

It's best to resize from 100MB to 300-400MB or so.

Only MS

[DakotaSmith]

"What we heard back most explicitly was that you want more control over when Windows 10 installs updates," admits John Cable, Microsoft's Windows director of program management. "We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive if they happen at the wrong time."

Only Microsoft would think that people don't want control of updates, or that unexpected reboots aren't disruptive.

I've been in IT 39 years. Only an idiot doesn't know those two things.

Re:Only MS

[gtall]

Of course they knew it, but they figured the longer they could get away with the forced updates, the better off they were at stemming any disruption to their business model. It is all about monetization of the "user experience". You are nothing more than a fat, information bloated meat sack waiting to sucked dry the MS Mosquito.

Re:Only MS

[UnknowingFool]

Oh they know. They haven't cared so far with Windows 10. Especially since some of those who got Windows 10 as a free update, they're not paying customers. Windows 10 was never the product. The user data was the product.

Re:Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet they try to pass off the spyware as though it were a tool for feedback and not data harvesting. Too bad feedback only works if they listen to it.

I also have a problem with doing their job for them. I don't want to buy Windows 10 (or buy a version of Windows that got upgraded to 10, same thing), and submit any data to them, even if it's to make their lives easier and to fix bugs. If they want that data, they can rehire their QA team or they can PAY me for it. I won't work for them for free.

Re:Only MS

[phantomfive]

I kind of thought that this was fixed back in 2002. Even this new fix looks like a regression from back then.

Re:Only MS

[Ayanami_R]

Most people don't want to care about any of that in my experience it's the power users doing the complaining. Ask any average mobile user what version their software is and 99% won't be able to tell you.

Re:Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

> slashdot vote would likely put telemetry at the top of the list

Probably, but the end users I have to deal with mostly complain about the slow start button since it has so many ads on it. Also, the search is nearly useless since most of the results are ads for their dying app store. Even just finding the start button in the first place is hard for a lot of people since Microsoft so confusingly removed the word start from it. So just getting to and quickly using the start button is what I think should be at the top of the list. Most people are just used to Windows crashing constantly, so we don't get many complaints about the Windows crashes for updates.

Re:Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been in IT for more than 20 years.

I don't get a wet flying sloppy fuck what computer users think about updates. Users are consumers. Consumers lie, procrastinate, put off important maintenance, and generally act with malicious negligence as a rule. The worst way to get a straight answer out of a consumer is to listen to them or worse ask them a question.

Users want two things they can't have: Their legacy windows software and no reboots or downtime. These two things are mutually exclusive in 2017. End of story.

Know why smartphones and tablets are so popular? They are locked down, modern, managed systems that are designed from the ground up to give a good user experience. Windows, on the other hand, carries decades old baggage that can't be avoided. (Despite how hard Microsoft tries. UWP will never become a thing)

Windows in the hands of unskilled users is dangerous. It just becomes a botnet node. Users that cannot administer their systems will have it administered for them. This means forced reboots.

Fuck, if I were in charge after the 3rd snooze was up a big middle finger would fill the screen and say "Fuck you, you lazy piece of fucking shit. This is a message from Bill fucking Gates: Get a fucking ipad and use gmail you sorry excuse for a human being." and the computer would lock itself until updates were completed.

Re:Only MS

[spire3661]

All the power, none of the responsibility.

Re:Only MS

[QuesarVII]

Fuck, if I were in charge after the 3rd snooze was up a big middle finger would fill the screen and say "Fuck you, you lazy piece of fucking shit. This is a message from Bill fucking Gates: Get a fucking ipad and use gmail you sorry excuse for a human being." and the computer would lock itself until updates were completed.

And what about long running software? If someone is running a simulation that takes 2 weeks, do you think it's acceptable to reboot the computer on them forcefully after 13 days?

Re:Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Our approach is to continuously listen to all the feedback and improve the experience with each future update.

Of course! This makes perfect sense now!

In order for MS to continuously improve the experience with each future update, they MUST start with the absolute shittiest product ever first.

Here I thought it was just some kind of arrogant corporate greed thing.

Re:Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are mistaken. All the non-techie people I know don't want to have to worry about updates. They feel that if the system needs updates, it should be applying them and not bothering them about it.

Re:Only MS

[wireloose]

"What we heard back most explicitly was that you want more control over when Windows 10 installs updates," admits John Cable, Microsoft's Windows director of program management. "We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive if they happen at the wrong time."

Made me laugh aloud. People wanting their computers to work when they are using them, rather than having their o/s rebooting unexpectedly? Microsoft has known this since the earliest days of MS-DOS and refused to listen. Now they act like it's news, 36 years after the first complaints.

Re:Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy. Don't use windows.

If you're running a simulation that takes 2 weeks you aren't anyway.

Re:Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

The absolute worst aren't even the reboots in my experience - it's when you need to run out the door, go to shut down your laptop so you can slam the lid, toss it in a bag and go... and you get the dreaded "don't you dare touch this laptop for the next 5 minutes to 8 hours, important updates you can't control have started. Do you (a) hang around for an indeterminant amount of time waiting for the 5 minute... no, 1 hour... no, 30 seconds... no, 2 weeks... no... updates to grind away and miss your meeting/flight/dinner; or do you slam the lid anyway and run the very real risk of screwing up the OS.

Re:Only MS

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Only Microsoft would think that people don't want control of updates, or that unexpected reboots aren't disruptive.

I've learned to expect the highest level of unawareness from Microsoft, even on regarding the most obvious topics. Sometimes I think they say things like this just to gauge the level of outrage and "WTF?" that follows.

It's almost as if none of them use a computer, at least not one running Windows. They sound genuinely baffled that an unexpected reboot would be cause for concern. It's mind-boggling.

Re:Only MS

[QuesarVII]

That's an incorrect assumption. I don't agree with the choice either, but there are a lot of people that do scientific work under Windows.

I know of a particular microwave propagation simulation software that only has full support under Windows. It's possible to send the compute work to a Linux system, but all of the visualization and modeling portion is Windows only.

Re:Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Retard.

Re:Only MS

[Tulsa_Time]

Has MS given up on SCADA, ICS and real-time computing?

Re:Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Have the simulation have checkpoints so it can be paused. This isn't rocket science here.

Re: Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

There is the Long Term Service Branch for Windows 10 Enterprise that is designed for this situation.

Re:Only MS

[erapert]

1. Mostly that's because my phone doesn't reboot when the apps on my phone are updated.
2. I don't use my phone for important work
3. The crappy version of Lagdroid that Samsung put on my Galaxy S III is no longer being updated anyway.

Re:Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called innovation

Re:Only MS

[Alumoi]

Of course it's acceptable. It's Microsoft's OS and they can do whatever the fuck they want with it. Don't like it? Don't use it.

Re:Only MS

[dwywit]

It *is* a pain, but not that difficult to mitigate. The reboot is a scheduled task which can easily be modified, or even disabled.

A bit more of a task for non-technical folk, sure, but not nearly as daunting as poking around in the registry.

Re:Only MS

[barbariccow]

That's very obvious if it were programmers writing most of these simulations/calculations/farm jobs. In reality, it's mostly scientists who happen to know a bit of programming who write the "driver" application which uses other minor libs that go sometimes up to 100 levels deep, all developed in the same situation. Even if the end-point scientist was forced to add checkpoints or otherwise saveable and restorable state in some form, if 40% of the work happens 52 levels deep in that chain, and 40% happens 64 levels deep in the other direction, your only choices are really "Save at beginning" or "Save at done." Oh, and you also can't modify those deep levels because they constantly change and have to be completely rewritten (and thus not patchable) because... again, they're written by non-developers.

Source: Years working in such fields.

Re:Only MS

[barbariccow]

That's crazy. Updates that don't just require their dependent services be restarted? You're one of those crazy leenaux nuts aren't ya? What'll you tell me next, that every time I install a new application I shouldn't have to restart either?

Re:Only MS

[TheFakeTimCook]

The absolute worst aren't even the reboots in my experience - it's when you need to run out the door, go to shut down your laptop so you can slam the lid, toss it in a bag and go... and you get the dreaded "don't you dare touch this laptop for the next 5 minutes to 8 hours, important updates you can't control have started. Do you (a) hang around for an indeterminant amount of time waiting for the 5 minute... no, 1 hour... no, 30 seconds... no, 2 weeks... no... updates to grind away and miss your meeting/flight/dinner; or do you slam the lid anyway and run the very real risk of screwing up the OS.

Slam the lid. Despite the dire warnings, it NEVER messes anything up.

Now as for the genius that decided that Shutdown was the perfect time to start some indeterminate process...

Re:Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Slam the lid. Despite the dire warnings, it NEVER messes anything up.

Except when it does (based on first-hand experience).

Re:Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny thing is that I have never seen any of my Windows 10 systems to unexpectedly reboot. It's like a fantastic tale from the lores of the Internet for me.

Re:Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

All of the advanced (i.e. research-level) mathematics software I've come across was written for linux, with many (most) not having windows ports at all. One of the biggest benefits of MS driving me to Mint is that now I no longer have to bog down my crappy laptop with a linux VM.

Re:Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

The absolute worst aren't even the reboots in my experience - it's when you need to run out the door, go to shut down your laptop so you can slam the lid, toss it in a bag and go... and you get the dreaded "don't you dare touch this laptop for the next 5 minutes to 8 hours, important updates you can't control have started. Do you (a) hang around for an indeterminant amount of time waiting for the 5 minute... no, 1 hour... no, 30 seconds... no, 2 weeks... no... updates to grind away and miss your meeting/flight/dinner; or do you slam the lid anyway and run the very real risk of screwing up the OS.

Yep. Just like getting ready to leave for work when you're already late, and all of a sudden, ya gotta go take a huge dump.

Re:Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite the dire warnings, it NEVER messes anything up.

Maybe not for you, but you are not everyone.

There are plenty of people for whom things are being messed up due to no fault of their own.

Good for you, though.

Re: Only MS

[Anonymous Coward]

If your biggest problem is finding the start button, you shouldn't be allowed near computers.

Re:Only MS

[Ayanami_R]

Most customers in my current environment don't even know they are using windows 7. It has nothing to do with a pocket computer versus a big one. It's just something people simply do not care about, is the device still working, can I do what I want on it? All good.

You don't but many do use their phones for important work, and they STILL don't give a rats ass what version is on there.

The disconnect between technologists and the general public is massive indeed.

Re:Only MS

[Matheus]

Wait... you shut down your laptop??

I haven't fully shutdown my laptop in 2.5 years. Problem solved.

add windows 10 enterprise gpo's to pro!

[Joe_Dragon]

add windows 10 enterprise gpo's to pro!

What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[GameboyRMH]

It would be nice to have a notification on the shutdown menu stating how many updates are about to be installed before you shut down or restart, to avoid the computer unexpectedly becoming temporarily both useless and unable to shut down while it's installing updates. This is a major problem for computers that aren't used often and have to shut down or start up in a hurry...like dedicated presentation laptops.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[omnichad]

Isn't it always one update? Or does that not apply to Windows 10?

That one update may take 30 minutes to install on a Core i7 with an SSD, but it's still only one update. And twice a year, the "one" monthly update is a completely new OS image.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[RightwingNutjob]

Which is why serious work doesn't get done on Windows. The corollary to an above comment that "only an idiot doesn't understand that uncommanded reboots are disruptive" is the statement that only an idiot would bring along a system to do a big presentation that is subject to frequent uncommanded reboots and brick periods.

I do all of my presentations on Linux machines and I set all of my machines to either disable auto filesystem checks on boot entirely or at least have the boot set up so I can CTRL-C out of it if needed. Why? Because my schedule gets set by me, not by some geek in another timezone who thinks he knows better than his lusers.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is my problem exactly. When I am shutting down my laptop, I need it to shut down now. Not 10 minutes from now after installing updates, now.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[GameboyRMH]

Must be nice to not have to deal with average Joe users at all...they see an interface that looks a little different from the Windows they're used to, and they're paralyzed. Putting an unfamiliar operating system on a computer they have to use would literally be at least as disruptive as changing Windows' UI language to Japanese.

Can't remember the last time I used a distro that didn't let you Ctrl-C out of fsck on boot by default. All I have to watch out for on Linux is update-apt-xapian-index on older computers, where it amounts to a surprise CPU and HDD stress test.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[Obfuscant]

Which is why serious work doesn't get done on Windows.

Unfortunately, some software is only available on Windows. People who don't program for a living tend to program to the style of the system they have at hand, and because Microsoft has so polluted the programming environment with system specific things, those programs become system-locked until someone with programming skills can convert it. If the source is available. If there is money to pay someone to do the programming.

This applies alot in the scientific community. Really smart scientists, or their graduate students, program something in Visual Basic or C# or whatever, and this becomes a distributed executable shared with others. They don't know better.

Or worse, it is a small company that has picked up the program and doesn't have the money to support multiple OSs, so they pick the one that everyone has. Windows. They don't make enough from your license to pay someone to port the code to Linux to run on your system, so sorry.

I have users who have models that run for a week. The "three day delay" in rebooting is really nice, Microsoft. Thanks so much. It does make for a wonderful morning when one of those users comes in to find the system rebooted after a five day run on a six day model. And all I can say is, umm, well, start over? And pull your system off the net. Yes, copy all the boundary condition data off the fileservers before you start.

only an idiot would bring along a system to do a big presentation that is subject to frequent uncommanded reboots and brick periods.

Unfortunately, in the scientific community, such presentations are often not under the control of the user, depending on the "IT department" of a hotel or convention center. And by "IT department" I mean the low paid people who have to deal with 1000 issues and problems all going on at the same time. The same people who make sure there are tables and water and the signs are correct for each of 100 meeting rooms...

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[KiloByte]

It's not Windows, you can uninstall that xapian crap, it's about as useful as nepomuk.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[GameboyRMH]

Yep that's what I do on computers that can't handle it. I first tried disabling the cron scripts for it, but they get re-enabled if it's updated.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[thegarbz]

Which is why serious work doesn't get done on Windows.

Hahahahah. Post like this is the reason the entire community isn't taken seriously.

Seriously.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[hackertourist]

This is one of the scenarios where Hibernate helps. Much faster (and more predictable) than shutdown/startup.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no idea why it can't just update the files while Windows is running with a reboot only required to make the changes take effect. Updates while shutting down is ridiculous.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is utter bullshit, and I'm a (nuclear) scientist that does give presentations. No venue yet has had an issue with me bringing my own machine with whatever opsys etc I want on it to plug into their AV system. I've been 100% linux in my lab for around a decade, and yes, I write code too, which is often used in those presentations, data aq and my research. Want to sell me a mass spectrometer, o-scope, or power supply (or anything else) that can't be talked to by linux. Lost sale. Done. I hear even the drag-drop lab software for dummies supports linux now.
Obfuscant lives on another planet. What color is the sky there?

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[barbariccow]

.they see an interface that looks a little different from the Windows they're used to, and they're paralyzed

What? Absolute bullshit. I hand novice users my laptop all the time. I show them how to move the mouse to the top-left corner so they can click firefox. Nobody has a problem or even further questions. If they wanna open something else, they do the one step I taught them: Move the mouse to the top-left corner, and if it's not a button in the left pane, they look around. Within a second because the upper-left corner gives an overlay such that everything past it is somewhat-opaque gray, their eyes focus toward the button they click to access ALL graphical applications.

Literally I've given gnome3 to 90 year old women who can't use windows and show them the 'one way to access stuff' and they have no problem..

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[barbariccow]

That's right. You can bring in whatever you want, you just can't hook it up to the network. And depending on how important the scientist is, you can break any and all the rules that gets them sciencing faster. They are the customer. Their work is the mission. You may have to clean up a lot afterwards, and what's why you create guidelines and don't let any ol' person with a degree do whatever they want, but in the end your job working IT in such jobs is supporting the scientists in their work (the primary goal of the institution/lab/whatever) NOT imposing your knowledge of best practices onto them.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[dpidcoe]

This is utter bullshit, and I'm a (nuclear) scientist that does give presentations. No venue yet has had an issue with me bringing my own machine with whatever opsys etc I want on it to plug into their AV system.

Nuclear is pretty unrestricted as far as IT goes. I work in the defense industry, and we confiscate all of your electronic devices at the gate. If you're presenting something, you transfer the ppt file ahead of time (they're super paranoid about usb sticks). You're stuck using whatever system IT has configured.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[Obfuscant]

Obfuscant lives on another planet. What color is the sky there?

You really don't have to be so insulting just because your experience is different than mine. I've been to many conferences where the rules are different, and I'm not talking about instrument control software for a $1,000,000 mass spec. I'm not talking about software that uses a standard protocol to talk to an oscilloscope or power supply (like GPIB or Labview) where I can write my own access software if they only provide Windows versions. I'm talking about a license for a model that costs maybe $500 and is available only as an exe file for Windows. Pure programming that has nothing to do with "drag and drop".

I also did not say that all scientists were incapable of programming well, only that many of them don't. I'm happy that you think you aren't part of that group, but many scientists don't have a clue how to write good software. I've spent hours trying to fix things as trivial as "what do you do if your parameters text file has a line without a ':'?" It took so long to fix because the problem was so patently obvious and really stupid that I couldn't believe anyone would write code that failed so badly, and because it ran when compiled with a stock Linux compiler (gfortran). The author never bothered to check the index returned for the colon separator in a "parameter: value" option. A blank line resulted in an index of '0' (not found) which was blindly passed to a string copy. (Copying a string from index 1 to "colon-1" is nonsense when the index of the colon is 0.) The failure was whitewashed by a low-performance FORTRAN library that did input checking on everything and didn't segfault. When compiled with a high-performance parallel FORTRAN that assumes the programmer wasn't lazy, it segfaulted, and did so under MPI, leaving only a "p4error" from the clients as a hint.

And I've spent a lot of time debugging what was supposed to be a fully supported configuration, but for some reason the author used mixed format FORTRAN code (some files free format, some fixed) and didn't correctly specify the compilation flags for each in the Makefile. I.e., the program would not compile, and the author didn't notice.

So climb down off your high horse, Coward, and recognize that the world you live on is not as homogenous as you think, and that not every reference to "science" refers to you.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[Grishnakh]

Must be nice to not have to deal with average Joe users at all...they see an interface that looks a little different from the Windows they're used to, and they're paralyzed. Putting an unfamiliar operating system on a computer they have to use would literally be at least as disruptive as changing Windows' UI language to Japanese.

So how did the Average Joes manage to figure out how to use Windows 8-10?

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[GameboyRMH]

Well at my office we skipped over Windows 8 and went straight to 10, so there wasn't as much change coming from 7. I'm sure it cost them a few hours of befuddlement, but they can afford that when they're not under pressure to do a presentation in front of clients right away.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, laugh it up. That's just the kind of unserious behaviour expected from a Windows luser.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[AmiMoJo]

In fact, in some areas no serious work gets done on Linux. A lot of embedded IDEs and tools don't work on anything other than Windows, for example. There are open source tools but they are toys in comparison.

It's the same with a lot of accounting and stock management apps. I'm sure there are many others.

It really depends on if the tools you need are available.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[RightwingNutjob]

That's not serious work. Serious work is work that requires you to write your software, not push buttons on something someone else did the heavy lifting on. A lot of seemingly mundane old IT falls in the former category, not the latter.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which community would that be? Slashdot community?

I set all of my machines to either disable auto filesystem checks on boot entirely or at least have the boot set up so I can CTRL-C out of it if needed. Why? Because my schedule gets set by me, not by some geek in another timezone who thinks he knows better than his lusers.

Here you do have a point, though.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[scdeimos]

Putting an unfamiliar operating system on a computer they have to use would literally be at least as disruptive as changing Windows' UI language to Japanese.

Funny you mentioned that, this is exactly why so many people complained about lost productivity (and functionality) when computers were forced to upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[DogDude]

Really smart scientists, or their graduate students, program something in Visual Basic or C# or whatever, and this becomes a distributed executable shared with others. They don't know better.

And what's wrong with their choice of tools? Why should they "know better"? Are you suggesting that VB and C# are inherently flawed tools, that nobody should use under any circumstances?

Let me guess... you're not in the private sector.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[Obfuscant]

And what's wrong with their choice of tools? Why should they "know better"?

Because their use locks other users into Windows. They are sharing a tool that MUST be run on Windows if others want to run it. This is not how science is supposed to work -- everyone writing the same tools over and over because the source is unavailable and it has to run on a different system to be useful. I thought that would be obvious from the context.

Are you suggesting that VB and C# are inherently flawed tools, that nobody should use under any circumstances?

Did you see me say that? I think from the context you might have picked up that WINDOWS is an inherently flawed tool for hardcore scientific number crunching, but you focused on the symptoms and not the illness.

Let me guess... you're not in the private sector.

Let me guess, you've never had to deal with complicated software that has been developed over several years but isn't available on an open system like Linux, so you either have to spend a year reverse engineering it and writing a usable version, or put up with Windows and the problems like unstoppable reboots, or not use it at all and not make progress on your own research.

Private sector, not private sector, doesn't matter. Some tools are available only on Windows, which means you either run Windows to run them or you do without. Or try to find a budget to write your own version, if you can.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[sad_]

Horrible, one of those things about windows that boggle my mind.
Start up laptop, it applies an update, making the whole environment slow and annoying. End of the day, shut down the pc and it says it needs to update/install whatever number of things. why do you do this, you idiot OS, i got a train to catch/appointment to be at/etc. then the next day, you start up your pc and it says - finishing applying patches/updates. REALLY? why? who made this stuff up? if this is really needed, then your OS is just faulty by design.

Re:What about Russian Shutdown Roulette?

[Anonymous Coward]

The consideration of OS is real. For running week long numerical simulations it is crucial that the OS does not suddenly decide to reboot the computer or download 6 GB worth of systems upgrades.

That said; Windows professional version does have ways to disable the forced updates, but it is neither common knowledge or easy. For all the time-lapse microscopy computers used in my university lab, people simple do not connect them to the internet. When they need crucial software updates for their microscopy software they allocate 1 day of windows update time. I disabled the windows auto-update feature on some of the microscopes I use, but I dread the day where microsoft just decides to just randomly ignore those setting.

If it was not for the fact that a lot of software only comes for windows, I do not think any one in my department would run it.

Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[Kitano123]

How about you just restore the exact customization options that are in previous versions of windows because that's what I want.

Re:Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[jader3rd]

How about you just restore the exact customization options that are in previous versions of windows because that's what I want.

But then you won't update your computer for years, resulting in virus's spreading from one computer to another.

Re: Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[Anonymous Coward]

15 years and 20+ computers later and I have never had a virus.

In that time working as a sysadmin, and having worked with hundreds of thousands of computers, I have had to remove a grand total of 5 pieces of malicious software.

DO NOT USE 3RD PARTY ANTIVIRUS.

MSE and MBAM are more than enough.

Re:Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[Anonymous Coward]

If Windows updates are supposed to keep you safe, then explain why there is currently a serious SMB vulnerability being exploited in the wild, that was made public in February 2 (but reported to Microsoft in December, IIRC) that STILL hasn't been fixed.

They are just prioritizing, right? Some things are more important, right? Better to ship late than to release something that doesn't work right?

That must be why an OH SO IMPORTANT update that fucks with their webcam API - that had been working since the middle ages - just HAD TO ship in its incomplete form and proceed to - surprise - fuck with their webcam API, making it impossible to your a webcam (unless it was a blessed one, apparently).

It is because of things like this that I keep the updates OFF.

Re: Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[Anonymous Coward]

"MSE and MBAM are more than enough."

You're the problem, not the solution. Oh, and a fuckwit to boot.

Congrats.

Re:Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[thegarbz]

As much as I appreciate having control your statement will fall on flat ears. Millions of unpatched Windows machines is exactly the reason the old process was considered broken.

Re:Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[hackertourist]

Those customization options left you with a dialog that says 'update now/remind me in 10 minutes/4 hours', with the default set to 'update now'. So if the dialog pops up just when you press Enter, the update proceeds to reboot your system. That was better than Windows 10, but not by much.

Its saving grace was that it could be disabled with a Registry hack, allowing a sane update schedule (i.e. weekly).

Re: Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus, that was harsh. I agree with the guy. I only use Windows for gaming, but I've never run full-time antivirus software. A couple of times about 15 years ago I had to do some free virus scans to get rid of some shit but other than that I haven't had a problem.
Anyone using Windows for mission critical stuff gets what they deserve.

Re:Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no doubt that the webcam API bug was a side-effect of a request for an explicit NSA backdoor.

If you read what little technical information was released, it seems to relate to adding the ability to creating a copy of an already encoded video stream from a webcam. Such a feature makes remote snooping much easier as it avoids the requirement to re-encode the stream (possibly alerting the user that something is wrong with their system due to excessive CPU use) and the stream is already compressed allowing for fast network transfer and less storage.

The whole situation stinks.

Re: Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[Anonymous Coward]

15 years and 20+ computers later and I have never had a virus.

Good for you, not browsing porn sites with a version of Internet Explorer you never updated!

In that time working as a sysadmin

You've rendered your opinion on forced updates moot. You're not Joe Dumbfuck.

Joe Dumbfuck is gonna Dumbfuck, and the rest of us are going to pay the price. Joe Dumbfuck's never going to apply updates. It doesn't matter if the updates are for some wonky ass DirectX shit, or that CMS he threw in a docroot six years ago to run a blog about his cat.

Joe Dumbfuck needs a gun pointed at his head, and updates to be rammed down his dumbfucking throat, regardless of operating system.

Re:Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[barbariccow]

Their update made is to instead of apps talking directly to webcams, they instead now all go through a central microsoft-provided service. So it broke all the apps that talked directly to webcams and used certain codecs which I assume were too hard to intercept and decode at the driver level realtime AND keep the video playing realtime. You need to offload into a service so it's one constantly recorded stream instead of one direct stream and one side-channel recorded to do that. And that's what they did.

Re:Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, explain to me again *why* they *had* to do this?

Re:Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Automatic updates were always turned on by default, so what you say is not quite true. What happened was millions of users make a totally rational decision to stop patching their systems.

The problem wasn't that there were so many unpatched systems, that was just a side effect. The problem was nobody trusted Microsoft to update their system without breaking it. Dealing with Microsoft updates became a bigger pain in the ass than dealing with the occasional infection.

So the old process was definitely considered broken, but not in the way you suggest. The way to fix this was to restore trust in MS updates by increasing transparency and increasing quality. MS took the anti-consumer path instead.

Re:Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[Trogre]

But go one step further and let me tell it that I don't want it to *ever* install Silverlight, and to please stop offering it every few months as a different KB.

Re:Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[scdeimos]

Automatic updates were always turned on by default, so what you say is not quite true.

I have to call "bullshit" here. Microsoft wrote KB306525 to instruct users how to turn on Automatic Updates in Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8.x precisely because Automatic Updates were *not* turned on by default.

It was only when Windows 10 was pending release that Microsoft started sneaking in unmarked "security update" patches that started turning on Automatic Updates for everybody and installing the Windows 10 upgrade stack.

Re:Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[Bite The Pillow]

No, because they are defragmenting the fragmented install base to eliminate as much bug hunting rework as possible.

QA suffered, with the hope that they would have to test and retest less due to a relatively monolithic base. Premature optimization. But the attempt continues, to address one platform instead of any combination of existing patches.

Wise move, poorly executed, poorly communicated.

Re:Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to now, where people who don't want win 10 and want to be safe from the associated backported spyware and whatever future shenanigans MS will try to pull on them without notice are all but forced to disable updates entirely.

Re:Stop changing what isn't broken MS.

[Anonymous Coward]

It depended on what you clicked on the setup box during installation. If you were a next, next, finish button clicker, it DID default to on. What you and the other dude are failing to mention is the pirates. It was rarely disabled by non-technicians because of "nobody trusted Microsoft to update their system without breaking it". It was disabled because as soon as you logged it in, it would run the activation and then start spamming you about being a pirate with an eventual disabling of IE and other various programs. If left in the not genuine state for an amount of time I don't recall, it would deny you the ability to even log in.

My statements apply to the home and pro versions, IIRC. The oem licenses, enterprise versions, or ultimate versions may have acted differently.

Hey Sysadmins...

[Anonymous Coward]

One of these times you push an update and force-reboot my PC while I'm working, I'm going to find you and KICK YOU IN YOUR BALLS AS HARD AS I CAN.

Re:Hey Sysadmins...

[Bugler412]

that's cool, we'll do the same, en masse, the entire department kicking you in the balls, when your PC gets compromised because you refused to install updates.

Re:Hey Sysadmins...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never once, in my career as a developer, needed anything from the "IT Department".

Re:Hey Sysadmins...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool story bro.

Re: Hey Sysadmins...

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't been trying hard enough, then.

I like to make it a game: what's the smallest thing I can do to the computer to stump the most number of IT "professionals."

Re: Hey Sysadmins...

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to do IT work. If the problem was something I couldn't fix within five minutes, I'd just swap out the computer and fix the problem system in my own time, usually by just cloning a new drive image to it.

Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, not good enough. I want to be able to fully control when or if my system receives updates, which specific updates it gets and when or if my system reboots. A delayed forced reboot is still a forced reboot. I only apply updates that fix a problem that I am having and 99% of all Windows update have exactly zero benefit to me. I also have some work projects where I need my computer to operate 24/7 for an indeterminate number of days or weeks.

The spyware, adware and reverting configurations needs to end too.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

May I suggest a different operating system? perhaps one which is known to have uptime of years?

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

I already use an OS like that for some things. I also use Windows for the things that I cannot do on the other OS because it lacks the software.

If Microsoft ever wants me to move from Windows 7 to Windows 10, I have one very reasonable requirement: let ME control what the OS does. They can go ahead and have defaults for stupid people, but let the people who know what they are doing have control.

Even MS-DOS is superior to Windows 10 because it only does what the user tells it to do. In fact, that is the very definition of a computer, because a computer that doesn't obey the user is quite pointless.

Re: Nope

[technosaurus]

I resorted to disabling svchost.exe from accessing the network. Now I just restore access when I want to update. It probably cuts off other MS services too, but none that I use or want.

Re:Nope

[Gravis Zero]

There is a fix for all of those problems, it's called Linux. :)

Re:Nope

[erapert]

I also use Windows for the things that I cannot do on the other OS because it lacks the software.

What specific software are you using on Windows? Perhaps we can help find a solution for you that will run on Linux.
At worst you only spend a couple seconds telling us. At best you gain freedom.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Same boat here only try an indeterminate number of months. The only known working solution I've found is to set a group policy for your machine that denies downloading of updates. Then when Windows asks to update every single day, let it open the dialog but then either background it or close it. As long as you don't download the updates, Windows will keep asking indefinitely but won't install any updates or reboot. The moment you download the updates is when the clock starts ticking to that automatic reboot.

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose you never apply security patches until after you've been hacked either?

Re:Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get "hacked" and if I did, it wouldn't be any concern of yours.

Today's Windows 10 update workaround

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

1) Use a wireless connection
2) Lie to the OS and tell it it's a "metered" connection
3) Tell the update manager to not download uploads over metered connections

I remember I put this into place when I just wanted to hop on my Windows 10 gaming desktop and play some FPS before bed. If Windows updates were active, they'd stupidly try to download at the same time, which would also excite the AV components, and cause lag enough to get me killed over and over again.

Re:Today's Windows 10 update workaround

[Anonymous Coward]

Or just stop (and disable) the Windows Update service.
Good job, Microsoft. Your changes have had the opposite effect to what you said you wanted - now, my PC goes without ANY updates.

Re:Today's Windows 10 update workaround

[sexconker]

I just wanted to hop on my Windows 10 gaming desktop and play some FPS before bed. If Windows updates were active, they'd stupidly try to download at the same time, which would also excite the AV components, and cause lag enough to get me killed over and over again.

Sounds like you need to git gud.

Re:Today's Windows 10 update workaround

[thegarbz]

No need to use a wireless connection. You can set metered as the system default through the registry on weird and Bluetooth connections too.

The latter, I.e. the only fucking metered connection I've ever used is the reason I looked for this seeing in the first place.

Re:Today's Windows 10 update workaround

[Anonymous Coward]

They disabled that in Anniversary Update.
Sure, you can still *set* that key, but it now does absolutely nothing.

Re:Today's Windows 10 update workaround

[erapert]

Think about the absurdity of needing to trick your own OS into behaving the way you want or need it to.
Why not just use a different or better OS?

Re:Today's Windows 10 update workaround

[Grishnakh]

Because people are gluttons for punishment and abuse, and would feel lost and empty without it.

Re:Today's Windows 10 update workaround

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe they just want to play some FPS before bed? Valve has done a lot for Linux and Mac, but neither of them are viable alternatives for mainstream gaming.

Re:Today's Windows 10 update workaround

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to know more about this weird connection stuff. Sounds intriguing.

Re:Today's Windows 10 update workaround

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, unless Windows crashes, forces an update or forces a reboot, all things that it is well known to do at the worst possible times.

Pro versions are much more profitable...

[Anonymous Coward]

and the main reason to spend the extra money is to keep Microsoft from so hatefully constantly crash our computers at random. I doubt they'll stop crashing our computers because they make a lot more money by extorting us into spending more to get the Pro version.

Re:Pro versions are much more profitable...

[Anonymous Coward]

They put ads on our start menu and make it too slow to use. They also make search less useful since they show fewer actual results in order to show ads for their failing app store. I doubt they're going to give us this feature for free.

Re:Pro versions are much more profitable...

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans hate children. They poison the water our children drink.

Am I doing this right?

Assumptions

[Fire_Wraith]

How about not assuming that my machine needs to be able to reboot itself randomly whenever I'm not there to click?

I don't care if you make that the default, but as a power user, I want the ability to change the settings because I know best for my situation, far moreso than some "one size fits all" mandated by Redmond.

Re:Assumptions

[scdeimos]

How about making the "Reboot Now" button the default one on the query dialog? That regularly trips up people typing away without watching what's happening on the screen.

Unexpected Reboots are Disruptive

[LeftCoastThinker]

"... unexpected reboots are disruptive if they happen at the wrong time."

No shit Sherlock. A 5 year old could figure that out in 2 minutes and this has been the case since Windows XP. The truth is your users are rebelling because you are were taking an FU we do what we want approach to your customers and MS is discovering that with tablets and smartphones and Windows 7 install base, most customers are not all that locked into MS products.

Re:Unexpected Reboots are Disruptive

[Grishnakh]

The truth is your users are rebelling because you are were taking an FU we do what we want approach to your customers and MS is discovering that with tablets and smartphones and Windows 7 install base, most customers are not all that locked into MS products.

Oh please. The consumers are bitching and complaining, and you're right, they didn't buy into MS smartphones, but overall they're all adopting Windows 10 for their PCs/laptops. Sure, some people are sticking with Win7 for now, but they saw the same thing with XP. They all eventually came around and moved to 7; they'll do the same with 10.

The users aren't "rebelling", they're whining. If they were rebelling, they wouldn't be using Windows any more.

Re:Unexpected Reboots are Disruptive

[Anonymous Coward]

The only windows machines on my network now are my girlfriends laptop (that she rarely uses, hates the "new" interface) and my xbox one s becuse it wass the cheapest 4k bluray player on the market when I bought it.
Oh yea, I have a Windows 7 vm I use to build Apache for Windows binaries when I need to try and get some new/obscure module compiled, most recently, trying to make mod_proxy_hcheck compile and work. my 3 or 4 other pcs (laptop, games, myth, and RPi) all run some flavor of linux.

Re:Unexpected Reboots are Disruptive

[Obfuscant]

They all eventually came around and moved to 7; they'll do the same with 10.

I will buy a system with Windows 10 on it only after I can no longer buy one with 7 or cannot put 7 on it. I have "updated" my last system to 10, and did so only because I have to support people who make bad choices for their computers.

If they were rebelling, they wouldn't be using Windows any more.

It must be marvelous to live in a world where the computer operating system exists just to exist, and not to be a tool that is used to run programs that do something productive. Yes, Windows 10 is a wonderful operating system for a computer that needs do nothing except ... run Windows 10.

Or maybe the world you live in doesn't recognize that some of those productive things a computer needs to do are only available for Windows? I get it; you don't need anything that isn't available in some version on linux and don't have any Windows systems, and that means nobody else needs programs that run only on Windows, either.

To paraphrase Spaceballs

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10? That's the stupidest OS I've ever heard of in my life! That's the kinda thing an idiot would have on his luggage!

Don't fucking reboot

[iamacat]

If you are going to insist on automatic updates, ensure that they can be applied to a running system, up to hotswapping parts of the kernel. Or just back off. My system is not a toy and is certainly not your toy. You don't get to decide if I get interrupted either today or 3 days later,

Re:Don't fucking reboot

[StormReaver]

You don't get to decide if I get interrupted either today or 3 days later....

Since you're still using Windows after all these years of Microsoft doing those very things, you have informed Microsoft over the years that it does indeed get to decide if you get interrupted either today or 3 days later. You have indicated that you will accept it, you will like it, and you will always come back asking for more abuse.

Microsoft knows that you are its slaughter sheep, and it will continue treating you as such until you stand up for yourself and switch to something else. Otherwise, you are just pissing into the wind and getting colored yellow.

Re:Don't fucking reboot

[iamacat]

Since you're still using Windows after all these years of Microsoft doing those very things

Where did you get this impression?

Re:Don't fucking reboot

[Obfuscant]

Since you're still using Windows after all these years of Microsoft doing those very things,

Windows 10 debuted July of 2015. That means it has been a total of about 19 months that anyone has been using it. Where do you get "all these years" from?

Oh, you didn't realize that the first thing many people (including me) did when getting a new Windows machine was to turn off automatic updates. No, you don't get to count "all those years" of using Windows before 10 as proof that everyone who uses Windows loves and accepts automatic updates and reboots.

You have indicated that you will accept it, you will like it,

Wrong.

Re:Don't fucking reboot

[Grishnakh]

You're the one whining, as seen in your original post with your grandstanding statement "You don't get to decide if I get interrupted either today or 3 days later,". Yes, MS *does* get to decide that. If you use their OS, then you've implicitly given them that power to decide.

If were weren't using Windows, you wouldn't be bitching and complaining about this, because it wouldn't affect you. I don't use Windows on my personal systems, so you won't hear me complaining about their update policies, because it doesn't affect me. I just sit back and laugh at Windows users as they whine about it, while refusing to abandon a vendor that treats them so poorly. Personally, I wish MS would treat them even worse.

cease fire stand down...

[Anonymous Coward]

there's moms & kids in all of our towns... sing along https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLO3NmGJuHg .. hugs not thugs,, that's the spirit

Re:cease fire stand down...

[Anonymous Coward]

But Republicans hate children.

They needed millions of people to tell them this?

[Anonymous Coward]

"We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive if they happen at the wrong time."

This should be basic common sense. But Microsoft engineers ignored it anyway. And they ignored QA. And ignored beta testers. And ignored user complaints for over a year and a half before it finally sunk in. How stupid are Microsoft engineers?

Still using Version 1511

[chewie2010]

Version 1511 (build 10.0.10586) works great. Turn off all the updates and Windows Defender and Windows 10 flys! https://www.howtogeek.com/howt... https://www.howtogeek.com/2244...

Wheres the delay indefinitely option

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh it exisits, it's called Windows 7, which market share increased this month. Even Windows XP is still at 8% market share three years after end of support. This all shows the failure of Microsoft.

Re:Wheres the delay indefinitely option

[Anonymous Coward]

I am still on windows XP with zero downtime since 2010. I didn't believe the XPocalypse because it was obviously a marketing gimmick. Now M$ is claiming Win7 and Win8 is not as secure as Win10, so everybody must use Win10. Would you believe M$? I didn't since XPocalypse stories.

Microsoft really know their stuff!

[admin7087]

"We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive if they happen at the wrong time."

Who would have thought that?

Now they just have to figure out how to disable all telemetry in Windows 10, and I might even start to use it!

Re:Microsoft really know their stuff!

[Anonymous Coward]

...you *can* disable all telemetry.

Re:Microsoft really know their stuff!

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen. MS makes developer tools second to none, and with the massive improvements to C# and F#, I love developing apps. But their decisions with the OS are driving me insane what-with the telemetry, auto-update->reboot, etc. The fuck, MS.

Microsoft - whats actaully a reboot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those people have all this a wrong way. Let just say my work machine is only rebooted for OS upgrades :)

13:50 up 268 days, 3:26, 14 users, load averages: 1.51 1.49 1.47

Not good enough!

[prunus.avium]

Give me control as to when to download the update.

I have a metered connection that is unlimited between 2:00am and 6:00am. Let me schedule the download so I don't burn through my available bandwidth with OS updates!

And don't hog my bandwidth when I'm actively using the computer!

Installing and reboots are the least of my concerns.

Re:Not good enough!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's easy. Schedule a task to start and stop the windows update service.

Re:Not good enough!

[neilo_1701D]

That's easy. Schedule a task to start and stop the windows update service.

Don't forget BITS. WUService might do the checking, bit it's BITS that actually moves the data.

Not good for the enterprise...

[__aaclcg7560]

When my employer switched from SCCM 2007 to SCCM 2012, the patch team was surprised to discover that users could set their own work hours for when the system couldn't be patched. That feature could screw up the mandatory 6PM-12AM maintenance window and leave systems out of compliance. A fix was implemented to prevent user from using that feature.

Re:Not good for the enterprise...

[spire3661]

The difference here is that the employer owns the machine and sets the schedule, not MS. I have no problem with companies implementing changes like this on their own hardware...I have a problem with MS deciding when and how my machine updates.

Re:Not good for the enterprise...

[__aaclcg7560]

I have a problem with MS deciding when and how my machine updates.

Tell that to the user who believes that their employer-provided workstation belongs to them, them alone and no one else. They don't like being reminded that their employer could easily replace their workstation with a box of crayons and still expect them to get the job done with that.

Re:Not good for the enterprise...

[operagost]

Or you could have done the smart thing, and change your "mandatory" maintenance window (someone has authority to change it-- who is it?) to 24 hours, then set the work hours on ALL machines through the GPO.

Re:Not good for the enterprise...

[__aaclcg7560]

Or you could have done the smart thing, and change your "mandatory" maintenance window (someone has authority to change it-- who is it?) to 24 hours, then set the work hours on ALL machines through the GPO.

Probably not a wise idea with 80,000+ workstations in three time zones across the Western US.

The real question is...

[evolutionary]

Why on earth would anyone in their right mind allow a system to "randomly" reboot in the first place...

Re:The real question is...

[Oswald McWeany]

Because they hate humanity and want it to suffer.

Re:The real question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about demanding better software like your phone where you can yank the battery and still have everything where you left it? Nothing of this, you have to click a manual save button crap anymore. If this were the case with software, a reboot wouldn't cause as many problems.

Re:The real question is...

[whoever57]

Because Microsoft has realized (a long time ago) that their users actually appreciate being screwed over.

What I see is that most Windows users have such low expectations for the way their computer works, yet are opposed to alternatives. There is some strong cognitive dissonance involved.

Not everyone is a gamer who plays games that only run under Windows, or uses Photoshop. Most users today just need a browser and perhaps an email client.

Re:The real question is...

[jader3rd]

Why on earth would anyone in their right mind allow a system to "randomly" reboot in the first place...

It doesn't. When an update is discovered, its downloaded to the computer when not using a metered connection. Then the user is notified for three days that a reboot is pending. If the user doesn't reboot, it will only issue a reboot during scheduled hours, based off of the computers activity history.

MS Promised Updates Without Reboots on Windows 10

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who remember that MS promised that almost all updates to Windows 10 could be applied without reboots when it was launched?
Unfortunately I can not find any sources - Google is cluttered :-(

Obligatory

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Obligatory "Are they not merciful?" post.

Wow, Microsoft is letting ME have a little more control of MY computer.

My Benevolence-O-Meter may not be able to withstand such punishment.

So-

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

Still beta software then eh?

Fire this guy just for being a putz

[hyades1]

John Cable, Microsoft's Windows director of program management: "We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive if they happen at the wrong time."

I'll guess I'll be sending in my application for a top job at Microsoft. I don't know jack shit about programming, but clearly that's not a requirement for pulling down top dollar in a position that is ALL ABOUT EFFING COMPUTER PROGRAMS.

Turn it all off

[Anonymous Coward]

You can turn off Updates, Windows Defender, BITS, and put a list of hosts into a file and redirect them to localhost.
You can also remove Cortana, any cloud crap, and the Shell Experience Host easily.

This can be done in less than 30 minutes, can be done on any version of Windows 10, and results in a very fast and smooth Win10 that never gives you problem or changes how it acts.

If you look at all the updates for Windows 10, you will see that People needed NONE OF THEM.

Don't start whining about Windows security, because with a simple firewall config and an ad-blocker you won't have any security issues unless you click on things you don't know about.

Take control of your computer you retarded sheep! If millions had Windows Update disabled then MS would know this.

Re:Turn it all off

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no! You said the F-word (firewall) and you are risking summoning APK!

Re:Turn it all off

[Opportunist]

Thanks for berating us. But heavens forbid you actually tell us how to do it!

the only way to win..

[Anonymous Coward]

is to not play their fucking game.

windows 7, even windows 8/8.1 is *better* and will always be better than windows 10 shit-on-the-user edition.

use those while they're still supported, use this time to plan your migration away from windows should microsoft not change course and give back control of *our* systems, software and hardware.

John Cable - Moonlighting as Captain Obvious?

[Anonymous Coward]

"We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive if they happen at the wrong time." In the immortal words of Bugs, "What a Maroon!"

That they have to have this explained to them

[taustin]

Tells us that Microsoft's executive staff is accustomed to having their PCs reboot at random times, with no option to have whatever they're working on, and being unavailable for extended periods of time while it does.

Which tells us a great deal about Microsoft, and Windows. (And how important the work their executive are doing really is.)

Want some cheese with that whine?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are really in IT, then you really should leave---and take your whiny baby attitude with you. Computers are tools, but you are simply a tool.
Sure, tools need to be maintained, but they are worthless tools if the maintenance is too frequent. But, of course, someone like you who get's impatient after 5 minutes would not understand these nuances.
Go home, grow up, and learn about things outside of your myopic view of IT.

Golly, thanks Microsoft

[Joshs922]

So nice of them to give us 3 days and no more to accept the updates and reboot! Microsoft: "All your computers are belong to us"

...Or just do what we've been doing until now

[ControversyDaily]

and stop pesky auto-updates alltogether. Grown-ups are capable updating their windows regularly on their own, no need to "feed" the updates

What a PR crap....

[herve_masson]

"We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive if they happen at the wrong time"

No, kidding.. Good to know you are able to "hear" things :P

That's not an ideological point or anything, it's just that when I'm at work, believe it or not, I don't want my laptop to reboot and halt my apps.
How come bright people at Microsoft thought I would feel different ?? Total mistery to me...
WHat is the purpose of doing those unwanted reboots ? A taste to make my life harder ? A reminder to override with linux ? Seriously....

Re:What a PR crap....

[Anonymous Coward]

You get those unwanted reboots because according to Microsoft the expected damage due to the increased risk of hacking due to a delayed security update is bigger than the expected damage due to an unwanted reboot.

Selectively Enable/Disable Windows Update Service

[orin]

Set the Windows Update service to a disabled state. Once Patch Tuesday has come and gone, enable it when you have a moment and then manually check for updates. When updates have installed, reset Windows Update service to disabled.

I've been waiting for another update

[TimothyHollins]

I'm more interested in when Linux can make it easy for me to stop using Windows.

I would love nothing more than a fully game-functional OS that doesn't come with a Bill Gates buttsexing me.

Re:I've been waiting for another update

[Greyfox]

There are a good number of Linux-compatible titles on Steam these days. Way more games than there were for OSX when I had my brief flirtation with Apple hardware in the 2000's. And way, way more than there were on Linux, back in the heyday of Loki games. You can run the steam ones with no fuckery whatsover. If you don't mind a little fuckery, I hear you can get at least a couple of the MMOs working with wine. Dunno about Skyrim, though. Haven't tried my VR headset on Linux yet, either, although apparently Valve just released the stuff for that a week or two ago. One of these days I'll plug my Vive into my Linux laptop and take a crack at it.

Re:I've been waiting for another update

[Anonymous Coward]

Skyrim will work in Wine, even has about as many bugs as in Windows. I have my Wine drive mounted on my san due to space constraints on the machine and still runs mostly ok, just an issue where keys tend to get "stuck" i've accidentally walked off a cliff once or twice because of it.

Home versus Pro issue (and $$$)

[Anonymous Coward]

The ability to tell Windows when is "after hours" time to apply updates is only usable in Pro versions IIRC.

Also, a snooze button is not what I want. If I leave things transcoding/etc overnight I won't be there to press snooze, will I? I want to ability to limit updates to 10am-4pm at home.

Channeling?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

John Cable: "We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive if they happen at the wrong time"

Donald Trump: "Nobody knew health care could be so complicated"

Is John Cable channeling Donald Trump? Because these two statements are horrifyingly similar in that they both show an almost unheard of level of cluelessness.

Re:Channeling?

[Anonymous Coward]

John Cable: "We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive if they happen at the wrong time"

Donald Trump: "Nobody knew health care could be so complicated"

Is John Cable channeling Donald Trump? Because these two statements are horrifyingly similar in that they both show an almost unheard of level of cluelessness.

It's not cluelessness. It's bad acting.

Disable Windows Update

[dryo]

It's so simple, just disable the Windows Update service. Turn it back on when you want to check for updates. This works on all versions, including Windows 10 Home. I don't understand why NO journalist has EVER mentioned this. Oh, wait, I know... because tech journalists are totally ignorant of the technology they are covering.

Also, check the Task Scheduler for fascist update programs like AMD Updater, which AFAIK cannot be disabled any other way.

Are they serious?

[DontBeAMoran]

"We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive if they happen at the wrong time."

Really? You needed users to actually tell you this?

Easier?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought they were going to provide a link to download Linux.

The absolute worst feature of Windows

[linuxguy]

There are plenty of issues in Windows, but for me personally, this is the absolute worst offender. The OS should never ever reboot my computer without my explicit permission. Specially when I have a tonne of stuff open. Just copy how Mac OS handles this. It is OK to periodically remind me that I need to reboot. But never proceed to do it when and as you see fit. Your guesses on when it is OK to do so are going to be wrong. Resists the temptation. Again, copy Mac OS in this regard. If they can get it right. You can too.

Re:The absolute worst feature of Windows

[erapert]

Or better yet, copy how most Linux distros do this: never reboot and never nag me to update in the first place (unless I opt-in to the nagging).

Re:The absolute worst feature of Windows

[Obfuscant]

It is OK to periodically remind me that I need to reboot.

Yeah, handle it like Norton 360 does. It does it so nicely. Here's what it does:

1. As soon as the user sits down to do any work on the system, pop up a window with a default "reboot now" option telling the user the system needs to be rebooted to update the anti-virus.
2. Offer an option to be reminded in a few different numbers of hours, such as "24 hours". When that time expires, go back to 1.
3. After rebooting to update the AV, within 24 hours go back to step 1, nagging the user that the system needs to be rebooted again to update the AV.

I love step 1. I REALLY love step 3.

11 hour "in use" window

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they still only allow you to specify an 11 hour a day window when you're using the machine? I am unable to tell it that I am using my machine from 7 am until 11 pm and it should only do updates outside of that window. Better yet, let me whitelist a set of hours when you CAN do an update.

Re:11 hour "in use" window

[Opportunist]

Still not good enough.

Tell me there is an update and I'll choose when to apply them and when/if rebooting is a good idea.

Huh?

[cppmonkey]

The are making it easy to kinda sorta mitigate a problem they created by not thinking through a design decision?. No a snooze button is not the answer. Reboot only upon user interaction would be making it easy to avoid unwanted reboots. Snooze just kicks the unwanted reboot down the road.

Funny

[lapm]

Maybe finally it docent try to reboot everytime i come from nightshift. Microsoft newer sees to amaze me how stupid things they do...

I have a better solution

[WillAffleckUW]

It's called the power switch.

Then it's really shutdown.

No power, no updates.

I once threatened a lawsuit over this

[Anonymous Coward]

I've threatened Microsoft before with a lawsuit over data loss as a result of their policy of automatic reboots. I eventually figured out that you can get some relief from group policies but most users don't know how to set those up. It is possible that Microsoft has received enough threats of lawsuits or class actions that they finally decided to change the policy. Thanks to group policies, I'm going on three months now without installing any of the 30+ updates nor rebooting my personal machine. I get at least one notification daily that there are updates available which is annoying but it is better than experiencing data loss.

Aready has a setting like this

[Anonymous Coward]

You can already choose blocks of time when Win 10 won't install updates. Trouble is I think that complaining about Windows 10 is easier than understanding all the features it has. If you go to settings then updates you will see a option to change active hours. This is in current Anniversary version. Someone on Cnet wrote a similar complaint and I guess didn't do his homework. I personally like the active hours settings, but having a option to defer for a week would be nice too.

Re:Aready has a setting like this

[Opportunist]

Ok. My active hours are 0 to 24, Mon-Sun. During those times I get to decide when and how to reboot my machine. Outside that time frame you can reboot whenever you please.

That I could accept.

A new round of abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

A longer delay doesn't solve the problem.

Microsoft is not trying to "solve the problem". Apparently Microsoft is trying to be abusive, and succeeding.

I see you installed some new old hardware

[raymorris]

> uptime
    16:51:37 up 107 days, 5:01

Looks like you installed some new hardware in December, eh? Was that a new CPU or some odd hardware that doesn't support hotplug?

I hate it when a PCI-e card doesn't support hotplug and I end having to reboot like some caveman running Windows.

Re: I see you installed some new old hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

PCI cards are hot swappable. You just have to be quick enough.

Re: I see you installed some new old hardware

[silentcoder]

Everything is hot-swappable if your hands can move faster than an electron.

Re: I see you installed some new old hardware

[Black LED]

I used to work with a hardware engineer who hot swapped ISA cards all of the time because the switch for his buffer card was hard to reach and he had to diagnose dozens of cards per day. There was never a problem.

Windows 7

[Anonymous Coward]

If they keep this up, before long Windows 10 will look just like Windows 7. The good ol' days.

I just want two things

[SmilingBoy]

It is very rare that I don't shut down my computer properly overnight. So I want to simply turn off automatic reboots completely. The second thing I don't like is when I turn on my computer in the morning, I need to wait a minute while it is applying updates. When I say "update and shutdown", why can't the computer update, shutdown, restart, fully apply all updates, and shut down again when done?

This update rebooted without asking me

[_Shorty-dammit]

This very update rebooted without asking me last night. *laugh*

Make the delay user configurable

[jonwil]

Make it so that you can tell Windows 10 to wait before rebooting for a user-configurable amount of time (anywhere from 1 hour to 3 days) with a "do it now" button you can activate anytime before the set time (i.e. if you know you dont need the PC for a while)

Re:Make the delay user configurable

[Opportunist]

Not acceptable.

Acceptable is me choosing when to reboot after an update. It's fine to remind me that it's necessary from time to time (read: once or twice a day), but it is UNACCEPTABLE to reboot it now, tomorrow or anytime without my explicit consent.

Updates without a reboot

[Anonymous Coward]

How about ms spends some of that r&d on making windows able to update without having to reboot

Re: fall on flat ears

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "fall on deaf ears".

Translation

[Opportunist]

Well, fuck. Even the shills we have hired at various Microsoft-praise-sites are now bashing us for rebooting their machines at random. So we decided to tone it back a notch, hoping that this will appease enough people to the level where they're probably pissed at us for rebooting their machines but not enough to actually consider switching to a system where they got control.

Let's see whether that's enough to make them shut up.

3D Printing Fail

[adjustinthings]

I was 3d printing an very large object on my printer and the print time was 21 hours. I was checking on it all day (its really fun to watch) and then finally after it was printing for 18 hours I walk back in to the room and see my printer sitting there motionless and my computer had an 'updates were installed' message waiting for me. THANKS WINDOWS 10, that was super important.

About F*cking Time!

[Anonymous Coward]

I cannot tell you how pissed I am that Windows 10 reboots your computer for updates and no way to cancel it. What if you are working!!!! I work as a contractor and need my computer 24 hours a day. I am always working. Even when I am asleep my system is transferring data, uploading projects or downloading new content. 2 times I was right in the middle of a long days work with many applications open over 4 monitors and on a skype call with some major players for the contract and my Windows 10 popped-up a window saying the system was going to reboot, the only options were "reboot now" or "close". The first time it shocked me, (I was used to Windows Allowing me to delay the reboot), I franticly looked for the cancel button or the delay for 2 or 3 hours when I would be done but could not find it. I had to continue with the call so I clicked on the "close" and continued to work. 15 minutes later without warning the computer rebooted. When the machine came back on line I tried to get in the Skype call as soon as possible but they had ended the call. I franticly opened up my projects and found that I lost data because I was updating them while we were talking about the project. I called one of the engineers that was on the project and he said that hanging up like that is beyond rude in their culture, but they gave me a chance to reconnect for about 2 minutes, in case it was an internet bump. It took me about 10 minutes total by the time Windows finished it's updates before I could use the machine. I wanted to direct call them but all my contact information for them is on my computer so by the time I had called them directly they would not take my call. The Engineer told me to not call again because they sent out and email stating I was no longer part of the project. I checked my email and I was removed from the project without pay! I lost $20,000 US!!! I was pissed!

I called Microsoft that day and spent 2 hours on the phone with support to fix the problem so I would never happen again. The Microsoft tech changed a few registry keys and said that would stop the machine from rebooting until I told it to do so. Basically I would get the updates and they would install but the machine would not reboot, I would get a message telling me I need to reboot. Then I could reboot anytime I was ready. Guess what? It did not work. Again I was in the middle of a huge project and the update pop-up greeted me with "reboot now" or "close". I clicked the close and looked for a way to stop the machine. I could not find it so I started saving all my projects and preparing for the reboot. Sure enough after 15 minutes the machine rebooted! I was pissed and again on the phone with Microsoft and they looked at the same registry settings, I told them they don't work. After about 2 hours they gave up.

This will be a welcome change if they do it right. I would like to see the following added.

#1 Let you set the hours of operation to anything even 24 hours a day. This would make the system prompt you for approval for any reboot and if you are not there to answer the pop-up the system does NOTHING!!
#2 Let you completely disable it if you want to, with a stern warning.
#3 Let you take the updates if you want them and schedule a reboot, even a day or week later. Should be minutes, hours, days, weeks, up to 8 weeks or something.
#4 Let you cancel them completely and no reboot ever. You are prompted for a reboot and you can cancel it and you NEVER have to reboot.
#5 Some settings in-between, like when to download them, when to install them, how to install (while working or when idle etc.) Reboot or not, or never reboot, reminders to reboot (on/off) etc.

Directors

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to have some misunderstandings about the role of "Directors" in our modern world.
Their expertise and usefulness arise in sucking 1% dick, enabling the exploitation of the proletariat and collecting a little blood money and influence along the way.
Being competent is a rarity, because it is largely unnecessary.
Pumping the profits to the few, that's always been the key motivation.
A little self-importance is nice too, fame and reputation and celebrity, but still secondary to the prime directive.

Re:Directors

[hyades1]

But every now and again, one of them comes up with a statement like this, blatantly exhibiting naked stupidity. I won't say it makes it all worthwhile, but at least it softens the pain a little.

No. No. No. Microsoft

[silentcoder]

That's not good enough. Not "snooze" and then wait for three days. You NEVER get to reboot a customer's computer without his explicite consent- it's HIS computer not YOURS.

If you really won't do what linux does and give him a nice little notice that says "updates available - install at your convenience" then you can pop up to say "Updates here, may I reboot? " and if the user says no, ask again tomorrow- but NEVER go ahead without his permission.

There is nothing more fucking anoying than having your OS randomly reboot in the middle of you trying to do work. It should never happen.

You do have control

[dkone]

I agree with most of the MS bashing comments here, but you DO have control over updates. Turn the 'windows update' service to disabled. Now you have total control over when you get updates. So really quit bitching about this, it is really a non-issue for anyone that has the slightest bit of knowledge about Windows.

kafkaes

[Anonymous Coward]

How kafkaesk: a big present from your OS: You can now choose not to reboot randomly!

So what is the big deal?

[RespekMyAthorati]

Just stop windows update service until you are ready to do an update. See Kill Windows Update

Who'd a thunk it?

[chopthechops]

"We also heard that unexpected reboots are disruptive if they happen at the wrong time." These guys really know their stuff.