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Microsoft Delays Windows 10 Spring Creators Update Because of 'Higher Percentage of BSODs' (bleepingcomputer.com)
Microsoft has admitted that it had to postpone the release of Spring Creators Update, the upcoming major update to its Windows 10 desktop operating system due to technical issues. BleepingComputer notes: More precisely, Microsoft says it encountered a higher percentage of Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) errors on PCs, the company's Insiders Program managers said in a blog post yesterday. Microsoft says that instead of shipping the Springs Creators Update faulty as it was, and then delivering an update later to fix the issues, it decided to hold off on deploying the defective build altogether. The OS maker says it will create and test a new Windows 10 build that also includes the BSOD fixes, and ship that one instead of Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17134, the build that was initially scheduled to be launched as the Spring Creators Update on April 10, last week.
I find it quite disturbing that they were even considering releasing this obviously faulty build and fixing it later. Do they not care about the name brand? It's already got people pissed off as it is.
Meanwhile, the update that I got about 10 days ago broke the ability of this computer to do the "no password required" bootup. It would give an error message and tell me unless I logged out and then logged in myself, my creations wouldn't be accessible in the future. Or something like that. Ran a few diagnostics / fixes such as scannow and it passed fine. So now, rather than run around and try to find the cause, I'm just waiting for the next update to fix it. The laptop is working fine, no problems with no-password bootup. Its just that a month ago, while on a cross-country trek from Virginia to Arizona, something happened (probably another update) and the keyboard and touchpad stopped working. Then, 2 days later, it magically began working again. (Probably another update.) Win 10 computers are getting to be really unreliable because of the updates dicking with them all the time.
Windows 10 Spring Creators Update 2018:
Coming the Winter of 2019.
I've got a SP4 and with whatever update they forced on me last week the windows all think I'm in vertical orientation after it sleeps and won't expand greater than the margin (even though I've left the keyboard attached, have the options set to desktop mode only and the desktop itself is still in desktop orientation!).
The only way to fix it is a reboot!
Microsoft - we updated your computer while you slept - figure out what we broke today! What fun!
I havn't seen a BSOD in Windows in over a decade now myself.
I have had major processes get stuck, slowing the PC to a crawl, forcing me to reboot to fix it. Random bits of hardware not detecting only for me to reenable it (Wi-Fi, Touchscreen mostly).
The last time I got a BSOD was over a decade ago and I think it was on Windows XP.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I've been using the latest Win10 update and my computer is justttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
They aren't delaying it for BSODs. Why do they care. They release updates like that all the time.
What broke is the user tracking software. That is why they are delaying it.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
Was your new computer an Apple device? No bad updates there, right?
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
What happens when they have buildings filled to the brim with software engineers working on projects/components, but each new component has a small chance of adding a new bluescreen on a subset of machines?
The whole point of Windows 10 was supposed to be that it was the end-state, the stage where all further upgrades would be updates to this. But lashing another sail onto the boat doesn't seem to be adding the thust expected, or bring the income desired.
They really wanted the Windows Store to be the future too - just like Metro was going to be the perfect union of touch-phone interfaces and desktop interactions (well, by forcing everything to just be touch-phone, and insulting anyone that disagreed).
But no one uses Windows Store. It most certainly is not an improvement on the flawed Apple store or other marketplaces.
Then there's the data gathering. I'm sure they market that information to folks (in aggregate) - but I'm also pretty sure that they aren't going to see the returns they might dream about for selling access to that information, compared to their dreams of being some super-Google.
Probably the biggest source of instability has been the DRM and protection systems. Locks and keys designed to, well, lock things up on anything being off tend to... lock things up. And there's teams of teams constantly working on those.
Windows is still a money machine. PC sales aren't at peak at the instant, but there's still mountains of money for selling OS licenses on most new systems.
So, they bounce between ideas still - cross compatibility with XBox game images - but they link it with Windows Store, so it's basically like signing a cult marriage contract. Strait up ports of some games, but the same Store logic kills that idea. Tools to help manage things - but they keep making the interface Metro compatible, so folks drop it as soon as they can find a better tool.
The overall story is that they still have folks there dreaming that their failed pet ideas are still the future, an unlimited income stream that just needs tweaking. They need to identify that, and get past those folks - especially if they're managers.
Then be OK with just making the best OS they can, without trying to loop everything back into some infinite income stream. The golden goose is good enough - work on the nest, NOT a butcher shop.
Ryan Fenton
I've seen the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL every now and then.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
At least Microsoft learned from the botched deployment of RS2 (aka Redstone-2, or the "Creators Update") which didn't work well on anything older than Skylake for several months. Looks like it is going to take them similar amounts of time to stabilize RS4 (Spring Creators Update... I wish they would just call it RS4 instead of coming up with meaningless marketing names) but at least they won't hold people's machines hostage in the meantime.
This is a natural consequence of the new world order Microsoft established with Windows 10. Now, the more money you pay for your Windows license, the more stability you get. At the bottom rung is the "insiders" who can actually install Windows totally for free. But they will always and forever be using beta releases, never will they be on a officially released version. Instead of paying MSFT with money, you pay them by giving away free QA. Next up is the people with the "Home" license. Most people are in this category. They get the newest release forced up their butt every 6 months. Next up if you paid for the "Pro" license you get a checkbox that lets you delay the newest release until another release is given after that. Finally, if you pay through the teeth for an enterprise license, then you get the Windows 7 level of service, highly tested stable releases every 3 years.
This is why I have Windows, MacOS, and Linux computers at home -- hopefully at least one group of them works at any given time
Sounds like my system. Every month or so the Windows update messes up my wifi or my display driver. Generally takes anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours to get my computer back to working correctly.
This is probably because the new default is to just reboot when Windows crashes.
tl;dr: Windows doesn't "BSOD" anymore unless you explicitly ask it to display the BSOD screen.
Look, I'm a Linux user, but if you've got a Windows 10 resulting from a Windows 7 or Windows 8(.1) upgrade (or the Windows Store), you have a digital entitlement. In any other case, you should have a product key. A digital entitlement is (relatively) cool in the sense that you simply boot with the Windows 10 ISO, which you can download directly from Microsoft, when a product key is asked, you say "skip" and after installation, your copy auto-activates the digital entitlement. This is even relatively flexible: hardware changes like hard disks/ssds/optical drives do not seem to be included in the digital entitlement hash. So, upgrading from HDD to SSD is no problem with a digital entitlement.
As said, any other way of acquiring Windows 10 gives you a product key which you can use on the hardware it's coupled to. If you do not have a product key, well, perhaps you should do some introspection. It's not as if getting Windows 10 keys is very expensive, especially if you live in Europe
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Oh, I had to deal with an MS botched patch that was applied last month that resulted in a BSOD every time someone logged off a PC, shutdown, or initiated a reboot. The message was SESSION_HAS_VALID_POOL_ON_EXIT' 0x00000ab. Clearly this was a software kernel panic, not HW which is normally you see with faulty storage or RAM. Occasionally, a buggy device driver can cause one too. But no, this bug was the direct fault of Microsoft!
FYI you can apply the fix via KB4099467 however.
Life is not for the lazy.
Yeah, that was a fun one, especially on a terminal server.
"Oh no... he found the
...which is usually a sign of faulty hardware and/or drivers.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I swear everyone forgets what a turd XP was before SP2
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
When they laid off most of their QA folks
I get end-user testing, early preview releases are a good thing, I preach it and live it but frankly these wholesale massive semi-annual fuck-overs to add one or two "features" is annoying as fuck. Every time there's hardware compatibility problems, delays in releasing them because they're refreshing the whole fucking planet. I get that they want to unify frameworks, that's good but for god's sake stop with this 1GB+ downloads and installs that fail over and over again until they finally get it right. Hopefully this should serve as a wake-up to Redmond that they're fucking over their customers and like me a lot of them are minimizing their exposure to Windows OS at least on the desktop.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Not trolling.
I have one computer at home. My desktop. It bluescreened on boot. Can't do anything. No way to download Windows, activate, whatever.
It was getting old, so I figured "Well, it is about time anyway, this is just the thing that pushed me over the edge to buying a new computer". I bought an inexpensive Dell...which I would recommend that people do NOT do! Only 2 SATA connections, and only one SATA power cable- the other connection is for the DVD drive that I will never use. (I have since bought more cables, but still have not installed more drives, because I hate doing this stuff)
I really didn't want to spend my weekend getting frustrated with OS installs, so I just bought a new computer.
It's a tale of woe that I put out there because this is the situation people are put in. If my wife didn't use the computer for her work, I probably would have said, "Ah screw it...I don't need a computer" or I would just install Ubuntu. But you know, Adobe.
I've been a 'tech professional' for over 20 years. And I really have absolutely zero interest in messing around with my computer. Microsoft did not lose my business because of this, but I did look at the iMac. Or, if BestBuy carried the Mac Mini, I probably would have bought that.
But next time, I won't do the same thing again. (Read my post history if you care to...I am a long time Microsoft fan. But dropping Windows phone, and now a blue screen on my desktop, I'm ready to say goodbye)
This is how they will lose a lot of market share.
No reason to lie.
Windows XP, Windows 2000 both were based of the NT kernel. Vs Windows up to ME which were still based on DOS So compared to All the consumer level windows versions up to ME. XP was quite stable of an OS, and so was Windows 2000.
But I argue that Windows 2000 was just a re-branded NT 5. As it wasn't really targeted towards the consumer market.
But XP based off NT... But targeted towards the Desktop Home user. Had a lot of problems especially early on. Compatibility problem with old DOS and Windows 16bit apps.
Also during this time, Home users were migrating from dialup to Broadband internet. This has opened their PCs up to the first time, to a nearly always connected internet for viruses and junk to get in.
When XP was released it was a rough time for users.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
No BSOD and no crash here since forever. Last problem: graphics driver, second to last problem: graphics driver. Don't remember when that happened, 6 or 8 years ago perhaps?
Graphics drivers still partially crash from time to time but killing the program (game) and then restarting it works fine without rebooting.
Oh, there is one other hardware related problem: since a BIOS update (well, UEFI...) there are some power management problems. Solved by changing some Windows settings so that it uses traditional hibernation, a few seconds slower boot but it works. The problem is the hardware manufacturer that don't think new BIOS updates are worth it for a computer that's more than a year old.
I avoid Windows drivers for my hardware unless there is no OEM driver.
If the latter is the case, then I need to reconsider my hardware choices...
Unless of course the hardware is MS branded, in which case I REALLY need to reconsider my hardware choices...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Am I the only one who thinks "agile" is a stupid metodology to use on an OS?
It's supposed to be stable. How does this benefit Microsoft?
I havn't seen a BSOD in Windows in over a decade now myself.
While rare, they aren't quite that rare. Though I did see a Windows 10 BSOD for the first time a few months back. They have QR codes now... for some reason.
As for Windows XP being the last I call shenanigans, or were you mysteriously in a coma from January 2007 to July 2009? ... Or more likely PTSD has caused you to wipe Windows from those 2.5 years from you mind.
You're not. But how does this benefit Microsoft? That's not quite the right question to ask. Microsoft will benefit as long as people buy their products. Whether it has something to do with their stability remains to be seen.
it's OK by me if the update has a lower percentage of BSODs. You can just add some more in a point release.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I've gotten about 10 BSODs in 3 months with the new HP ZBook they gave me at work. It'd be a lot more than that if I hadn't stopped putting it into sleep/hibernate mode. All different crash codes too.
Yep.
MS wants exactly the right percentage of BSODs.
Not more.
Not less.
the goal for BSOD today is 14.6%.
aaaaaaa
Yep, probably the Soundblaster XFi. I am too cheap to replace it with something better, but too spoiled for the onboard sound.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
That is fair enough. These are (relatively) good reasons to spend money on a new computer. However, that was besides the point: Your original statement was that you didn't want to wrestle with Microsoft to get a working and activated copy of Windows. As much as I hate to say it, Microsoft finally does the right thing and allows re-installation from an ISO you can get with them. Not only that, their (end-user) licensing has been simplified so that a re-installation is not the headache it once used to be. Your statement was simply factually untrue.
Even if you only had only that computer, as a tech professional, you surely had a bootable Linux somewhere. This would have allowed you to boot the machine, go download the Windows 10 ISO, and make a bootable USB or burn it to disc. From there, you could have reinstalled the machine. I'm just saying. I understand you were angry and probably didn't have the time, but the machine could have been salvaged pretty easily.
Still, the above would have taken a few hours. Hours which you didn't want to spend. So, I understand.
As for the two SATA connectors and lack of cables in your new machine. OEMs always go with the most bare bones they can get away with. Two SATA is common, limited power supplies too. My experience is that you best do not buy a computer on a hunch, without research. I have done quite a few time and pretty much always something ends up annoying me endlessly. As often, taking decisions while angry, are usually bad decisions.
Good luck with your new computer. However, if you really want to leave the Windows world entirely, take that old computer slam a distro of your choice on it and start using it. I did that a decade ago, and never looked back. The main "trick" is not to look back and decide to look for the "Linux" way of doing things and eventually look for alternative programs.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Don't replace it with one from the Asus Xonar line, they (and even more their drivers) are about as crappy.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Thanks for the warning - the Xonar line was the only reasonable alternative I had in mind.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I hope GP reads this as a continuation of yours.
In his defense, installing MS's OS takes more than a couple of hours, few is not a word I'd use in relation to these installs. I do agree with your assessment of a new PC. You never buy OEM bottom of the barrel unless all you're needing is a web browser, email, and perhaps some document editing. In his case he needs Adobe, I'll assume PS at the minimum. For that, I'd have bought no less than a Core i7 with 16GB RAM as a bare minimum. Given that it's a Windows machine, I'd probably go with 32GB. I'd also have an M.2 SSD in it for the system at least. It wouldn't have been anywhere near the cheapest option.
What gets me is that if you're on the fast ring, there's a few things you do to protect yourself:
because the fast ring will fail as it is an unstable branch.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Granted, for many people you can add another couple of hours to setup the desired software and disabling/enabling all stuff Windows 10 gets wrong in the default settings... but, if you're after a working computer, you can get one really quickly these days. We are far far far away from setting aside two days to configure a Windows machine.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I always remember a few years ago when they did.... Windows 8? They were bragging that the BSOD was gone........ ...Because it would now be red. Reminds me of when they got rid of the 360's red ring of death - by removing the ring.
I have one. It's ok, it works, no BSODs, but the drivers are bulky, unwieldy and don't really deliver anything beyond basic functionality. Their 5.1/7.1 functionality is a joke compared to the SB XFI I had before.
Then again, at least the Xonar is stable, so...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I just happen to have installed ... Win10 1709. The exercise ... was 1h30 tops.
Glad to see that MS got down to a mere 90 minutes to install the OS with basic defaults. </sarcasm>
Granted, for many people you can add another couple of hours to setup the desired software and disabling/enabling all stuff Windows 10 gets wrong in the default settings... but, if you're after a working computer, you can get one really quickly these days. We are far far far away from setting aside two days to configure a Windows machine.
So, it's not actually installed yet, it's just the base, now you get to "tweak" all the crap to actually get it to a real working state. And only then would I worry about installing software.
I just recently did a full fresh install of OSX 10.12 on a mini. It took 60 minutes total to install the OS, migrate the old 10.10 system to the new system and then get the latest updates for all software. Fully configured system with heavy personalized modifications ready to go. If I'd skipped the migration as I did on another system, it took about 50 minutes, including installing all necessary software.
Ubuntu was about 45 minutes for the various things I needed setup. I should mention I had to google a few of those. Mint was less than 30.
If you're catching the drift that I'm not impressed with MS's performance here, you'd be spot on. There's no excuse for their OS to be this user unfriendly. Perhaps win 10's next release could focus on user friendliness? Right, that's right up there on their priority list, right behind user privacy and security.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
On a decent connection, from PXE to fully installed (all applications included) for Ubuntu is 20 minutes. Been there, done that.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
The default in Windows now when it BSOD's is to reboot. Of course, if it just boots up into another BSOD, that's how you get the reboot loops. If it's more of the random fluke BSOD, you just come back and see your computer restarted (oh, must have been Windows Update...again....). That's how people claim that they've not seen a BSOD in years. You can turn that nonsense off if you want, though I wouldn't trust Windows 10 to not ignore it and do whatever it wants regardless of the setting.