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Windows Server 2016 Has an Update Problem, Users Say
madsci1016 writes: Frustrated with how long my Windows Server 2016 Essentials was taking to apply weekly updates, I turned to the web. A quick search revealed that I'm not alone. Many people are reporting similar experiences across the web. All sharing stories of weekly patching taking hours and sometimes ending in hung welcome screens. Some of these threads started a year ago and are still active, with no response from Microsoft addressing the issue. If you use Server 2016, have you experienced this problem?
5ms google search and... https://www.ubuntu.com/server
I found a method that's worked every time on >250 servers since I found it a couple of months ago. Before that, I used to have interns just hit retry over and over and over again for days. That was dangerous since we have to give them admin access.
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/2d191bcd-3308-4edd-9de2-88dff796b0bc
Install the PowerShell module then run:
Get-WUInstall -AcceptAll -KBArticleID KB
Updates like KB4088889 that would usually fail dozens of times, always work using that method. It's just too bad that Microsoft can't have Windows Update do what that PowerShell module does so well.
Ubuntu wants to update 1-2 times a week
True enough.
, and always wants to reboot after.
Not so true. It needs to reboot after kernel updates and a few other obscure cases. That's more like once every 2 or 3 weeks.
But more importantly, with Linux, it's just a normal reboot. With WIndows, they put you in a special update purgatory for some unpredictable amount of time both before and after the reboot, possibly well over an hour: "Windows is doing updates XX% done. Do not turn off your PC".
It's frigging 2018, and they've never figured out how to fix this despite pocketing countless $Billions peddling this OS. WTF?
Got a decent (that is, less awful to set up, configure, and administer) replacement for Exchange/Outlook?
I mean, MS is trying to make this easier for us by having Windows Server and Outlook constantly get worse (our two most common platforms are Mac OS X and Android; Outlook is half-assed garbage on Mac and a complete joke on Android).
My yearly search for a decent email client always leads me back to Thunderbird, which is fine, but the mess of ultra-complex garbage suggested to replace Exchange is insane. We've got a hosting company to look after AD and Exchange for us, so a replacement has to be easy.
G-Suite might do it, but we need self-hosted, we don't want Google reading all of our email and whatnot.
- chrish