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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."
And then it is already to late.
I notice "Reliable" is not in there. Please add that one in, too, Microsoft.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
...like the Windows Update that kept trying to install itself over the last couple of months, failing each time after multiple restarts, then defaulting back to the old installation, no matter what I did.
Finally, I downloaded the most recent one (bypassing the older version), and it still had problems. Until I unplugged all of my USB devices except my mouse and keyboard. THEN it installed.
No problem at all.
...."all your IT belong to us."
Seriously, that is just the type of new-speak jargon for "we don't care about you, only your sweet, sweet dollars now that we've gotten you locked in, heh, heh, heh...".
ANYONE still using Windows 10 is getting exactly what they deserve.
n/t
Microsoft should separate out the operating system, the applications, libraries and the user data a lot more and then with proper security measures and filesystem snapshots the operating system could be a lot better, easier to manage and easier to rollback.
If something goes wrong on Linux or BSD I do an apt-get or pkg install with a specific version. With a ZFS boot volume, I snapshot before and after any major updates, something goes wrong it literally takes seconds to repair. On Windows, you can't roll much of anything back without destroying the OS.
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Until the whole thing gets diarrhoea. An unexpected reboot that breaks things or installs bubble witch saga is usually what happens.
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.
I've had patches take over 2 hours to install, and woe be onto you if you turn your computer off in the meantime. I don't even know what the hell it's doing. These are not slow computers. i5 6600U & 8 gigs of ram.
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I also find windows update to be very approachable and down to earth. You know, an update you'd like to have a beer with at the bar.
You know the game is over when the higher-ups start responding like this. That is the "You don't know what you want" attitude that has foreshadowed the failure of many companies and projects. They're grasping at straws, frustrated, unable or unwilling to understand the problems, and unable to recover...
Stick a fork in it, Microsoft is done.
(of course with the amount of money they have, they won't go under any time soon; they will probably be a corpse still gasping for air in 100 years)
How proprietors use their power over the user power varies and perhaps increasingly obtuse, but is completely explainable in terms corporate media mostly doesn't dare to explain even as it documents a proprietors' excesses: the power is firmly rooted in denying users software freedom—the freedom to run, inspect, modify, and share published computer software. Proprietary software users get as much control as the proprietors let them have. Microsoft has shown its users a taste of their power before such as when Windows 10 ignored user's privacy settings (including sending identifiable information to Microsoft, even if a user turns off its Bing search and Cortana features, and activates the privacy-protection settings) or when Microsoft forcibly and immediately imposed "upgrades" to Windows 10.
DRM, jailing, tyrannical control, surveillance, interference with ordinary activities, and sabotage are all there. When and if Microsoft deems it time for Windows users to take their updates without warning or opportunity for delay (including enterprise users), Microsoft will do so. This isn't unique to Microsoft either, this is part of an ongoing pattern of which Microsoft is but one proprietor wielding this control. Proprietors get to make these decisions stick based on your willingness to submit to their authority; you determine the limit of their control over your system by how long you'll let proprietary software (such as most of Microsoft's software) be installed on your computer. You can choose to favor software freedom instead, even if it means giving up some conveniences and learning new things. In doing so you take a step in the direction of controlling your computer and getting back the power you deserve over your computer.
Digital Citizen
In the future Windows will evolve into a Useless Machine. When you turn it on, it's only purpose will be to get an update and turn itself back off.
Because Windows update is better on 7? You kidding? Windows update was so bad on 7 they literally had to create a tool for people to fix it.
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
UI feed back sucks way to long of looking stuck.
Server 2016 is really bad with that.
Windows Server 2016 needs to give admin's full control of active hours. Not limited range you get now.
TO get around it you need to force an and install and reboot time with an GPO. WHY IS active hours even in play when running hyper V?
lot of Linux updates don't need an reboot! on windows at least 1 an month.
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?
M$ collected from all its Windows 10 users, a good understanding of new OS upgrades should be possible?
What is M$ doing with all the OS use, software and hardware leave data?
M$ set its own min hardware standards for every Windows 10 upgrade so each computer should be new and powerful enough fully support Windows 10?
Do users CPU, RAM and GPU need more OS level resting to find hardware faults?
How hard is it for a company to write and test an OS upgrade for their own OS given they understand every aspect of their own design?
What is causing the problems? Users buying the wrong RAM/CPU hardware that has too many faults?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Wilcox outlines that Microsoft's guiding principles to its monthly Windows service updates are built around being "simple and predictable", "agile", and "transparent."
Did he somehow miss Microsoft's July patches?
That stopped in July 2016, because now you have to pay for it. https://support.microsoft.com/...
They think people would pay for that garbage... nah.
Until admins have some kind of recourse to take against $Microsoft when ^Boss can't get to his funny cat pictures and passes :( admin over for his next raise because of a forced update that broke stuff, there will always be hate/strife.
I've never once had rolling back to a restore point help. It seems like a great idea, but the implementation is lacking.
Microsoft made a very smart decision, which was exactly the right thing to do at the time. Then the world changed and what had been a good decision became a huge problem. Not because Microsoft was dumb, but because of a fundamental change in computing.
> It's also had proper security measures for ages (UAC is basically Sudo)
Yes, it is basically sudo, which was considered proper security ... in the 1970s. Windows has had it for ten years, so only 30 years behind. That model is called discretionary access control, or DAC.
In the 1970s and 1980s, very secure systems had a much more secure model, called mandatory access control. That's more security than needed for a personal home computer which runs from a local disk, as opposed to a mainframe exposed on a network. A personal home computer only needed to be worried about virsuses on disks, because they used Disk Operating System, not a network operating system such as Unix.
Then the world wide web happened. What had been your personal home computer was suddenly exposed to hackers around the world. The level of security needed, the way one thinks about security, had to change radically. That's why Linux got Mandatory Access Control in the 1990s, first as an optional module, then as a built-in part of the kernel, called SELinux. Since the late 1990s, MAC has been "proper security". Windows may get it in about ten more years - they recently got the *nix userland.
I said Microsoft ended up in this situation by doing something smart. In the 1970s, computers cost as much as a house (particularly with important accessories like hard drives). Microsoft wanted a system people could run at home, on affordable hardware. That meant a few kilobytes of memory, and a 360KB drive. A drive that can store 360KB isn't much. To make that work, Microsoft would have to delete 80% of the OS compared to mainframes. It made perfect sense to delete stuff home users wouldn't have any need for. Before the web, they had no need for any of that security stuff, so Microsoft didn't include any in their OS.
Microsoft spent 190-1994 (and a billion dollars) developing a new future of computing. The key underlying technology was called COM. Their vision of the future was finally ready for beta testing when it got it's name, Windows 95. But something crazy happened. In 1995, the world wide web became a phenomenon. There was a whole new future of computing completely different from what Microsoft had spent years developing. At first they tried to stop the web, then tried to turn it into a bunch of COM programs (by renaming COM to ActiveX) which would run only in Internet Explorer. That didn't work, of course. HTML was too good of an idea to be stopped.
Microsoft starting fighting. Trying to save their vision of computing. Mobile showed up and Microsoft tried, but missed. Tried again and missed. They fought against Linux, they fought against the open internet, and they fought against the government potentially breaking the company into pieces. They fought for 20 years and in all this fighting they didn't accept the reality, the new needs, and build a solid, secure operating system - they improved some things, but didn't catch up on security. Remember they started off about 30 years behind on security, which was actually the smart thing to do at the time.
A few years ago Microsoft leadership really accepted they had lost the fight. They have started embracing Linux and open source. They now know they and their systems are just one more player in a huge global network - one full of dangers. It takes a few years to reverse the culture all through a behemoth the size of Microsoft, so pockets of old-school Gates and Balmer-style thinking remain. They are improving on many fronts.
Of course their new thing is Windows as a service, paid for in part through the Facebook model of giving up all your privacy and control. We'll see how that works out. Facebook is an enormously successful company, so maybe the same model will work for Microsoft.
Windows has what they call Mandatory Integrity Control, which is very different from MAC.
The concept behind MIC is useful for systems with tens of thousands of people. Well, it would be useful, except Microsoft forgot to implement half of it. It's not very useful on a personal computer, and hence rarely used. The idea, borrowed from DoD, is that people and files are assigned security levels. Low security, medium, high, top secret. Low security people can't read high security files. That's cool - of you have tens of thousands of people who need different security LEVELS to maybe access millions of files.
The second half of that system, uses by DoD and others serious about security, is that high-level people can't write low security files. If you have top-secret information, anything you save could contain top secret information, so by default it I treated as top secret until it's cleared. Windows doesn't do that. On Windows, the admin's Keepass keyring may be a low-security file, and therefore readable by JavaScript.
Even if they had implemented MIC, both halves, that in no way replaces MAC. The two are orthogonal. It's like the CIA saying "we don't need locks on the doors because we stamped the document 'top secret'".
For me it was way before Windows 10 that I was having serious problems with windows updates. On Windows 8 while everyone was complaining about the start screen I was complaining about the updates. But, then again, was also having the same problems with Windows 7. Not sure why such a delayed response...
All I am seeing is a lot of MS hate. But consider this. They have been doing their "patch Tuesday" stuff for a long time. Most times it works flawlessly, and no one even notices. When in a couple of cases PC's have problems... well that is what everyone remembers, and they label ALL of MS's updates as fucking useless. I would also like to point out that if you work in a company that has competent engineers they will test the updates on a series of test PC's before rolling it out to the rest of the corporation. Yes, they can do that MS has given them the tools, but lazy fucking engineers don't bother, so they end up causing widespread issues before they realize that update xyz is not compatible with us because we use hardware abc. Whose fault is that? MS? sure, because they released the update, but crashing all the PC's in a company, well, that's the fucking companies engineers fault for not properly testing first. There is a LOT of disparate hardware out there, the fact that windows update works for most people most of the time is fucking amazing, if you can't see that then all you want to do is hate MS. If you hate MS so much why are you even using windows?
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
The only good thing you can say about MS is that whatever they do it is consistently bad.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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."
There seems to be a trend of companies countering arguments about highly defective software with 'oh, well it's because we are Agile'. Of course, Agile doesn't mean that you have to ditch your QA or anything, but it's a narrative a lot of software companies roll with. It's also interesting because even using the excuse is suggesting they think the users asked for it and the users are all just getting what they asked for. I see this a lot with companies, they paint their picture of the user base with broad strokes, everyone must want the same thing, no way that the people wanting 6-month releases for an OS are a minority...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
We don't care about your facts, we feel it's different.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"simple and predictable", "agile", and "transparent." --- I notice that "high quality" is not mentioned in the goals for the patches. It shows in the low-quality patches that Microsoft has been thrusting upon its customers ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H data harvesting sources. It seems that Microsoft no longer cares about quality.
Our Patching is Simple, Regular, and Consistently Buggy, Says Microsoft.
It seems it's a feature. . . .
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
I've never once had rolling back to a restore point help. It seems like a great idea, but the implementation is lacking.
This! Microsoft restores are as helpful as Microsoft troubleshooting.
Amusing story - I had a trouble call for a virtual Audio driver problem. I knew the answer because it is common. But the person who had the problem insisted the fix was not the fix, because he had run the audio troubleshooter and it told him everything was okay. He ended up getting pissed at me and yelling and swearing at me.
Finally I just told him try the solution, because nothing he had done before had fixed it. I walked him through it, and then had him reboot. Next words out of his mouth were "Oh", then 5 seconds of silence, then "Looks like I owe you an apology."
Microsoft restore, Microsoft troubleshooting all mostly worthless. My experience is they get in the way more than help.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I am still using Windows 7, not Windows 10. I log all the updates to Windows and associated Microsoft products. When I review my logs, I see a large number of updates replacing prior updates.
Starting at the beginning of 2014 (when I had to have Windows 7 re-installed), 69 updates were replaced. Three of 69 replacement updates were subsequently also replaced. One of those re-replacements was even again replaced.
At the moment, I am holding up the update for KB4338818, which causes unacceptably adverse “Known issues in this update”. Those issues are supposed to be fixed by an update for KB4338821, which has not yet been released.
Having spent 30+ years as a software test engineer testing software used by the U.S. military to operate its space satellites, I can tell that Microsoft relies too much on its customers to be unpaid testers. This is why I have always disabled the Windows automatic update capability. It seems that Microsoft's record with Windows 10 updates is no better.
Why is even active hours a thing for a server version when that should be 24x7 by default? If I want to reboot my servers I will reboot them just fine when I feel like it. Thank $DEITY that we don't use Windows for anything where I work.
Ever work windows support? The first guy you talk to is an idiot. You have to go through the normal BS reboot, is it on crap until you get a real help assistant. They probably though this was the same thing.
Susan - I did a survey and we found you suck.
MS - yea, yea, you suck too. Now send us more money.
For may years I dabbled in Linux distros as a hobby, using MS Windows for interaction with my paid work, as employer used exclusively MS systems and tools.
Thus Windows 98 to windows 7 all went reasonably well, but update of Windows 7 to windows 10 caused major upsets to older software designed for Windows 7.
I battled on but updates to 1703 took a long time and then ceased thereafter to update!
Since version 1703 Windows 10 has never completed and update.
As I was free of paid work, I used machine on a USB based Linux (I have used openSUSE 9 to LEAP 15 over the years) and for last two years this USB booting has worked well.
So now I feel happy in Linux-land. I only reserve MS Windows for residual tax / accounts software records on old Windows system in case of tax enquiry.
When this likelihood is gone, I will convert machine solely to Linux.
Regards Eion MacDonald
Clearly you've never used Windows 10, because it actually works fairly well. In the sense that eventually you'll run into an update that will fail on your machine, and Windows will try to install the update again, roll back to a restore point, try to install it again, roll back to a restore point, try to install it again, roll back to a restore point....basically forever.
Also seen on Windows 7 after Microsoft fucked up Windows update on Windows 7 a few years back, but at least on Windows 7 you can block that update and break the cycle.