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Windows 10 Buggy Updates? Our Patching is Simple, Regular, and Consistent, Says Microsoft (zdnet.com)
Microsoft has declined to comment on an expert's many complaints about the quality of its recent patches and cadence of Windows 10 feature updates. Earlier, Susan Bradley, a Microsoft MVP who for the past 18 years has volunteered her time helping Windows users, took a survey of over 1,800 respondents regarding the Windows 10 Update experience. She then sent an open letter to Microsoft executives summarizing the results of this survey and providing thoroughly researched material regarding the poor update experience Windows 10 users have been experiencing. In return, Microsoft argued in a blog that it gives admins all the tools they need to test and provide feedback before it releases Patch Tuesday updates. From a report: Microsoft's John Wilcox, who helps promote why organizations should move to Windows 10's Windows-as-a-service model has, at the behest of Windows pros, offered an explanation of its monthly Windows 10 quality update servicing cadence and terminology.
As noted by ZDNet's Ed Bott recently, IT admins who'd spent years learning about Windows Update needed to "prepare to do some unlearning" due to the many changes introduced by Microsoft's shift to a Windows 10-as-a-service model. "With Windows 10, Microsoft has completely rewritten the Windows Update rulebook. For expert users and IT pros accustomed to having fine-grained control over the update process, these changes might seem wrenching and even draconian," he noted. [...]
Wilcox outlines that Microsoft's guiding principles to its monthly Windows service updates are built around being "simple and predictable", "agile", and "transparent." Wilcox doesn't directly address patching expert Bradley's major complaints about Microsoft's patches of late, but said Microsoft's predictability meant IT managers should be able to handle its "simple, regular and consistent patching cadence."
As noted by ZDNet's Ed Bott recently, IT admins who'd spent years learning about Windows Update needed to "prepare to do some unlearning" due to the many changes introduced by Microsoft's shift to a Windows 10-as-a-service model. "With Windows 10, Microsoft has completely rewritten the Windows Update rulebook. For expert users and IT pros accustomed to having fine-grained control over the update process, these changes might seem wrenching and even draconian," he noted. [...]
Wilcox outlines that Microsoft's guiding principles to its monthly Windows service updates are built around being "simple and predictable", "agile", and "transparent." Wilcox doesn't directly address patching expert Bradley's major complaints about Microsoft's patches of late, but said Microsoft's predictability meant IT managers should be able to handle its "simple, regular and consistent patching cadence."
Microsoft is so full of shit that the Couric scale measuring it broke in half. Windows 10 with no updates can be quite "simple and predictable" but updates carry a massive risk of installation failure with irreparable OS damage compared to my experiences with Windows 7. I neuter the Windows 10 update system on all my Win10 machines because the updates are guaranteed to mess up the system at some point; it's not "if," it's "when." It also doesn't help that every feature update rearranges the control panels and loses control panel functionality, and when Microsoft says "send us feedback so we know" and feedback is sent, it is FUCKING IGNORED.
They're fucking lying. Microsoft the company has no regard for the needs of the users. I'm sure several engineers there really do care, but they can't fix the problems caused by the weenies that think they're too smart and users need to be dragged kicking into their new paradigm. To hell with user interfaces that have slowly evolved over decades and proven to stand the test of time! To hell with the most fundamental usability concepts! To hell with everything that works! We're AGILE! But somehow also SIMPLE AND PREDICTABLE! Because that makes sense when Satya's ya boy!
Fuck you, Microsoft. Give me back my fucking Default Programs where I can unilaterally assign one program to all possible defaults with one click, otherwise go fuck yourselves.
1803 (April 2018 patch) has been very problematic for me as well. BOTH my dev machines still can't update to that version, as it hangs or errs on installation. After failing to install multiple times over the course of several months, they both seem to have given up, leaving me at 1709. I'm sort of wondering how long 1709 will still get support. What happens if a Windows 10 machine gets "left behind" simply due to technical issues with patching? Answer: probably something I won't like.
I've had more issues with patches in the last few years than I ever remember having in the previous decade or so. So, yeah, count me as being pretty unhappy about the lack of quality control in the patching process. Before a couple of years ago, that wouldn't have even made my top ten complaints.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
It simply isn't.
Windows 10 updates are out of control. They claim they intend to schedule them at proper or convenient times but they don't. The computer will just up and reboot at the most inconvenient time.
They are NOT stable, they DO break, and files DO go missing. One computer I support did the 1803 update and all the files were gone. The profile was still there, the files were gone. I found them - they were IN THE TRASH.
WHY? WHY MICROSOFT? Why did you see fit to upgrade this PC and throw away the user's files? Are you sending a message? Is it personal?
You can say the solution is Linux. For many geeks and power users that is true.
I have another solution, 4 simple letters.
LTSB
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
I'm curious how administrators managing certified/validated systems are handling this. Generally speaking the user of such systems is not supposed to install changes that they have not tested and do not control. If Microsoft is removing the ability for system administrators to understand or manage updates how are they maintaining certification status?
I've never once had rolling back to a restore point help. It seems like a great idea, but the implementation is lacking.
Its a strong natural monopoly. If you work at a site that has used windows / office for years, its very difficult to change. LibreOffice / OpenOffice are fine applications but they are not able to interact well with complex MS office docs. Some organizations like ours have lots of documentation in MS systems like sharepoint. When you have many years of infrastructure and documentation, its very expensive to switch.
Some applications work better on Windows than on LInux, (Matlab for example), and others like Photoshop and Itunes won't run on linux at all (except in a windows emulation environment which sort of misses the point).
Windows is still easier than Linux for non-expert users to use.
I really dislike W10, and would switch to Linux if it did what I needed to do - but it doesn't.
ANYONE still using Windows 10 is getting exactly what they deserve.
/.
And by that, of course, you mean anyone who has wanted to purchase new hardware for their organization in the last several years?
. It's the pretentious sanctimony and dunning-kruger arrogance that lets me know it's still
Microsoft now a hardware company with a range of PCs which come in very restricted hardware flavours actually have the ability to test their software against a control group. So why is it that every other patch tuesday we hear stories about Surface models bluescreening, melting down, batteries not working, type covers not working, to say nothing of the graphics driver issues they have experienced with software MS has released specifically for these devices and not the general population.
It should not be up to any admin to test patches, but that's the frigging sad reality we are stuck with.
Reading their responses, in which they don't even respond to what's actually being brought up, I somehow get the feeling that their corporate communications policy literally doesn't allow them to admit mistakes, so instead they just try to pivot and go on about something only tangentially related rather than admit that patches have been an absolute mess for the last few years. Only problem is that their move to turn Windows into a Software-as-a-Service type deal is only going to make the buggy patch problem worse when admins get less control over what patches are installed.
Then again I do understand why they don't want to address and admit fault with their shoddy testing and QA practices. Windows 8 and now 10 have after all been the way better advertisements for Linux, Mac OS and other alternatives than anything their creators could conjure up and they're obviously noticing how IT admins are once again looking at alternatives (the last time being when Windows 10 came out).
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."