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Windows 10 To Use Machine Learning in Latest Attempt To Make Reboots Less Annoying (arstechnica.com)

The next semi-annual update to Windows 10 will use machine learning models to make automatic rebooting for updates a bit less annoying. From a report: Currently, Windows will detect if you're away from your system (mouse and keyboard idle and not playing video or anything comparable) and perform its reboots during those idle moments. However, at the moment, the system doesn't distinguish between briefly stepping away from the machine to grab a cup of coffee and being away for hours because you've left the office or gone to bed. This has provoked some amount of complaining due to the updates interrupting work. With the new predictive system, Windows will try to distinguish between these two cases, and it will avoid the update if the absence is expected to be short.

3 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. I am amazed by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I am amazed that people put up with this nonsense. That MIcrosoft can reboot your own computer essentially at will, at an instant of their choosing, is something that should be of grave concern to anybody even minimally concerned about data security and confidentiality.

  2. Re:How about not blowing away work? by LVSlushdat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It astounds me how much just plain ABUSE users of Windows put up with, since MS released the steaming pile of shit that is Windows 10. I spent a 20 year career supporting Windows as a sysadmin, from Win311 to Win7, but if my job required working with the current version of Windows, I'd quit.. Needless to say, I've been 100% Linux since my retirement in 2010..

    --
    THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
  3. Kill automatic reboots by aaron44126 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A lot of things about Windows 10 I honestly don't mind, but this is absolutely ridiculous. Never-mind that I may leave stuff open and want to come back to it without interruption the next day. Sometimes I have a long-running video encode or compute job (i.e. multiple days). I don't need Windows randomly deciding to reboot and throw away my progress.

    Why do we need machine learning for this? Just give users the option to decide when they want to reboot.

    Anyway, to those who haven't figured it out yet, there's an easy way to stop this behavior.

    Visit C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator.
    Delete the file named "Reboot". This is the scheduled task that actually fires off the reboot after an update.
    Create a folder in the same place named "Reboot". This prevents Windows from automatically re-creating the file that you deleted.
    Done.