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Microsoft Accidentally Released Internal Windows 10 Development Builds (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the whoopsie-daisy dept.

Microsoft is apologizing for mistakenly releasing some confidential and internal Windows 10 builds to the public. "Builds from some of our internal branches were accidentally released for PC and Mobile," reveals Dona Sarkar, Microsoft's head of its Windows Insiders program. "This happened because an inadvertent deployment to the engineering system that controls which builds / which rings to push out to insiders." The Verge reports: Microsoft says it quickly reverted the issue and put blocks in place to ensure these development builds didn't reach more people, but a "small portion" of Windows 10 users still received them. Worryingly, the accidental mobile build even reached retail devices outside of Microsoft's Windows Insiders testing. If Windows 10 testers installed the mobile build it forced phones into a reboot loop and bricked the device. Testers will have to recover and wipe the device using the Windows Device Recovery Tool. Windows 10 testers that installed the PC build, an internal Edge branch, will have to wait for Microsoft to publish a newer build or roll back using the recovery option in Windows 10 settings.

34 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Microsoft is evil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Microsoft is evil and does not care about the best interests of their customers. These updates are harmful but users don't have a choice other than Windows 10 because Microsoft is a monopoly. Odumba should have issued an executive order to break up Microsoft for violating antitrust laws.

    1. Re:Microsoft is evil by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I'm doing security consulting for a living. Many of our customers are currently evaluating a replacement for their aging Windows 7 systems. And quite a few of them are actually and seriously considering moving away from Windows rather than moving towards Win10, or at the very least putting some money behind evaluating whether such a move is feasible.

      Can you imagine just HOW much this spyware has to shake up CEOs that they would rather consider retraining thousands of workers to use a Linux based system than to use Windows 10?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Microsoft is evil by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      Every year it gets a little closer. Like the Babbage Analytic Engine, it may take 100 years.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    3. Re:Microsoft is evil by roc97007 · · Score: 2

      Well, it's great for the developers. They get instant feedback from the user community on new releases.

      Ok, most of that feedback is unprintable, but still, it is feedback, of a sort.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    4. Re:Microsoft is evil by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      This is different.

      First, it's not home users that are trying the switch. Nobody gives a shit whether you in your basement go for Linux. Even if you really go through with your plan, you're one lost license. Ok, ok, two because you have that laptop. This is corporations with thousands of licenses. And there's a long, long tail of jobs (and consultant jobs!) hanging on it. You already have a lot of Linux machines in the server market (we actually have more installations of RHEL than MS-Server running), a lot of the backend infrastructure of large corporations is already OS-agnostic (or at the very least not strictly MS-centric). Many of our customers "need" Microsoft only because they use MS-Office and AD, everything else is already easy to migrate or would already run smoother in a Linux desktop environment.

      Second, the Linux desktop has always been about 10 years behind Windows. Today, though, this means that it's about on par with what WinXP was. Which is for most people "good enough". It is possible to tweak Linux so that the average user doesn't need to learn much.

      And corporations already have Linux admins for the aforementioned Linux servers, so administrating the desktops isn't a big deal anymore either.

      Funny enough, the biggest issue for many is the supporters who know too little about Linux to sensibly aid the workers, and training CC-agents is usually not really very popular. In other words, if you have at least a nominal level of knowledge about Linux and need a CC part time job to have some money while studying, this is probably going to be a good time for you.

      So no, while the "average user" was supposed to make the "year of the Desktop" come true for Linux it was nothing but a wet dream. But with corporations now seriously considering the switch, this is a whole different level.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re: Microsoft is evil by techno-vampire · · Score: 1

      I use Xfce, and agree with you completely. I'm an old-time CLI hack, I used Windows 3.1 a bit, but only when I needed it. The first time I used a GUI full time was when I was working at a company in the '90s that had Win 95 on every desktop. By the time I migrated to a full-time GUI about ten years ago or so, organizing my desktop in the Win 95 fashion, with one panel and columns of icons down one side of the screen simply felt right to me. Gnome 2 let me do that, but the fact that Gnome 3 wasn't going to allow me to decide for myself what went where, I moved away, and ended up with Xfce. From what I've heard about recent versions of Windows, letting people customize things for themselves isn't always an easy task. I won't say that most users would abandon Windows if they knew how easy it was to set most Linux DEs up the way they want, but it would probably be another nail in the Microsoft coffin.

      --
      Good, inexpensive web hosting
    6. Re:Microsoft is evil by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 1

      Everyone I know in the game is likewise evaluating alternatives.

      I think this is a really exciting time for Linux and BSD.

      Or for the only reasonable alternative, macOS.

    7. Re:Microsoft is evil by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Second, the Linux desktop has always been about 10 years behind Windows

      Then why did MS Windows 7 with it's little window snapshot icons look like the Enlightenment Window Manager from 1997 that did the same :)
      It hasn't been technical superiority, it's been merely the effort required to change.

    8. Re:Microsoft is evil by Javaman59 · · Score: 1

      This is different.

      Yes. Previously the complaints against Microsoft were largely non-technical, and people were faced with a choice of paying a small amount for a Windows system which worked and they were familiar with, or having Linux for free but with no practical advantanges. Microsoft were always able to keep the prices down to the point where switching just wasn't worth while. But now we have a Windows which doesn't work and people aren't familiar with. Even if it were free customers don't want an operating system with a history of catastrophic failures, and which requires retraining. The cost of switching to Linux may well be lower than switching to Windows 10.

      Second, the Linux desktop has always been about 10 years behind Windows. Today, though, this means that it's about on par with what WinXP was.

      Quite a bit better than XP, and more attractive, IMO. The various "innovations" in Windows 8 and 10 may excite Microsoft, and even some power users, but everyone else just wants a system which let's them fire up email, the web and Office. They don't care if it looks and feels the same year-after-year. Games have largely shifted to consoles, and outside work people are spending more time on their phones than their PC's. People don't want a "better" OS which is unreliable or causes them to relearn how to use it.

      About 5 years ago I had my mom staying as a guest and I had a Linux Mint system set up in the guest room for web browsing. She liked it very much and thought it more attractive and easy to use than Windows, and when I told her that it was free she commented "Why doesn't everyone use this?"

      --
      I'm a software visionary. I don't code.
    9. Re:Microsoft is evil by AJWM · · Score: 1

      Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.

      What's Microsoft's count up to now? ;)

      --
      -- Alastair
    10. Re:Microsoft is evil by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I have never said that Android or iOS are better (actually, they're worse). But what is the alternative? Gimme one and I move.

      No, Win10 on mobile isn't. For exactly the same damn reason.

      The mobile ship has sailed, at least for now. Yes, I do have a mobile phone, simply out of necessity. And I have a quite restrictive company policy concerning what content it may transport. But that's besides the point.

      The difference between mobile and desktop devices is that with the latter, you DO actually have a non-invasive, non-spying choice. With the former, you can only hope that one day you will. But for desktops, it is already here.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    11. Re: Microsoft is evil by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      That's also wrong. Remember the outcry when Win8 came with the "tiles"? You might argue that that was ahead, but in the end, people hated it.

      If you want to convince people that they should move to your flavor, you have to have the flavor they know and like, or at the very least got comfortable with.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    12. Re:Microsoft is evil by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Remember, this is corporations. What the users want is essentially pointless.

      The key here is that management doesn't want the way Windows takes them. The older ones currently have flashbacks to the days of IBM's dominance, where big blue could essentially tell them to grin and bear it or close shop, and if you were deep enough in the Blue, they essentially ran your IT department, and they did it the way THEY thought is good. This was actually what made MS big in the first place, because they were maybe not better than IBM in many aspects, but they were at least not IBM. And now MS is just the same, patronizing you in your IT department ("I know when you should patch!") and carpet bombing those that dare to resist with legal bullshit. This is IBM in the 1980s. And you'd be surprised how many current CEOs had to deal with petty IBM bullshit in the 80s when they started their careers.

      And of course you have to deal a lot with CEOs' egos and their inability to suffer that someone tells them what to do without coating it as a "suggestion".

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    13. Re: Microsoft is evil by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      Another "even my mom can use Linux" post that is just simple browsing. That's pretty much true on any platform. Try day to day usage including updates and upgrades. Let me know how she deals with a dependency problems and broken repos.

    14. Re:Microsoft is evil by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      MacOS is NOT an alternetive, period.

      It's pretty mainstream.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    15. Re: Microsoft is evil by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      Actually I never found Linux to be behind as far as the basic desktop went. After all, the desktop, minus GUI tweaks, has been pretty standard for the past 20 years. What keeps changing is the locations and "wizards" for various settings, which is annoying as hell. Another thing is the ever changing MS Office file formats, which they appear to have been caught by themselves with the long term life span of Office 2010, which forced them to be backwards compatible.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  2. "Bricked" - you keep using that word... by davecotter · · Score: 2

    I don't think it means what you think it means...

    1. Re:"Bricked" - you keep using that word... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Nah, that's not bricking. When you need special development cables and/or to open the device to restore its function, THAT is when it is a brick. If it cannot be fixed at all, no matter what, it is an eternal brick. If it requires replacing a component, it is a hard brick. If it just needs the developer mode or JTAG flashing, it is a soft brick and "a piece of cake" :-)

      If it is a normal-consumer field-fixable thing that, e.g. only requires booting from repair media, it is not bricking *at all*.

    2. Re:"Bricked" - you keep using that word... by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      Hm. My understanding of "bricked", which is probably out of date, is to put the device in a state where nothing can fix it short of physically replacing components. I guess language and its uses marches on.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    3. Re:"Bricked" - you keep using that word... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If it's as simple as a restore or reinstall the o/s then the device ain't bricked. Bricked means unresponsive, inert, unable to be revived - basically a dead parrot. There's a bit of a grey area if we're talking reflashing the bios, tackling the anti-tamper screws or flimsy plastic catches on a laptop, or whipping out the soldering iron, but plugging in a USB stick/DVD and reinstalling? That's not bricked, that's just Microsoft.

    4. Re:"Bricked" - you keep using that word... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you dont know what JTAG is then you have no room in this conversation. Damn sure not as much room as you take up..

    5. Re: "Bricked" - you keep using that word... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      20 years in IT is nice (I have a lot more) - but his descriptions are correct and nobody cares what someone who doesn't even know what a JTAG cable is thinks about the subject.

    6. Re:"Bricked" - you keep using that word... by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

      You can still get into the BIOS and boot from another device. That is NOT bricked.

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    7. Re:"Bricked" - you keep using that word... by Khyber · · Score: 2

      That you don't know about something as basic as JTAG means you have zero credibility here to talk about anything.

      That's my 29 years of experience (out of almost 35 years of life, now) with computers talking, CHILD.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  3. Impressive... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

    I'm sure Office 365 and Azure customers will be...heartened and encouraged...by this sort of expertise in operations and system management on the part of their cloud service provider.

    Users of their client software, by contrast, can think happy thoughts about how robust and well supervised the release process for Windows updates is.

  4. The build bricks the devices? by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Funny

    Gee, if you didn't tell us it wasn't intentional, we probably wouldn't have been able to distinguish it from any other update.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:The build bricks the devices? by Megane · · Score: 1

      But that was only the "mobile" build, so the damage was limited to the thirty or so actual users of Windows Phone.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  5. Well, that explains it by roc97007 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I must have been using an accidentally released internal build all these years.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  6. Debug Symbols? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Did the builds have debug symbols? That would be a goldmine for reverse-engineers.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    1. Re:Debug Symbols? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      You can get Public symbols for most builds via http from Microsoft. These contain enough information to get you a stack trace but not local variables or source code file/line index information. Consult the Debugging Tools for Windows documentation if you want the nitty-gritty details.

    2. Re:Debug Symbols? by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      If only. You need to download the debugging symbols to make any sense of BSOD crash reports. That's always fun trying to find out why a new machine is crashing. First step: Download several hundred MB for your build
      Step two: Install a few programs that really should be part of the windows installation in the first place.
      Step three: Follow some online guides and realise that your BSOD is nearly always caused by some dll with Mcafee in the publisher name.

  7. Re:Maybe a bug in source safe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Well, they are moving everything to something git-based, which is a _LOT_ of work. Especially because normal git can't handle something that massive, so it is actually a diffused, virtual networked git object storage, with every other CI and deployment tool needing to be migrated to this new backend.

    Someone likely screwed up on one of the provisioning tools, or a new tool was easy enough to misuse, and someone got confused (for real, or on purpose -- lots of people there are not really happy that they need to learn something new, the usual :p).

  8. macOS hardware choice sucks! you can hack it but by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    macOS hardware choice sucks! you can hack it but after each update you may have to re hack it

  9. Re:macOS hardware choice sucks! you can hack it bu by TheFakeTimCook · · Score: 1

    macOS hardware choice sucks! you can hack it but after each update you may have to re hack it

    Mac hardware is much more carefully-spec'ed than you realize.

    For about 85-90% of applications, what they offer does just fine. The other 10% usually hack. Apple has obviously accepted that tacit arrangement. They could lock macOS to Apple hardware with ease; but they don't.

    I believe that is exactly why.