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Latest Windows 10 Update Has Yet Another File-Managing Issue (gizmodo.com.au)

An anonymous reader quotes Gizmodo: When it was discovered earlier this month that the 1809 build of Windows 10 was deleting user files just because, Microsoft halted the update until the problem was fixed. Shame, then, that another not-as-bad-but-still-bad file overwriting bug has now reared its head. in 1809, overwriting files by extracting from an archive using File Explorer doesn't result in an overwrite prompt dialogue and also doesn't replace any files at all; it just fails silently. There are also some reports that it did overwrite items, but did so silently without asking.
Ars Technica speculates that there's a larger program with Microsoft's testing process: [M]any of the preview builds had a bug wherein deleting a directory that was synced to OneDrive crashed the machine. Not only was this bug integrated into the Windows code, it was allowed to ship to end users. This tells us some fundamental things about how Windows is being developed. Either tests do not exist at all for this code (and I've been told that yes, it's permitted to integrate code without tests, though I would hope this isn't the norm), or test failures are being regarded as acceptable, non-blocking issues, and developers are being allowed to integrate code that they know doesn't work properly...

Microsoft's new development process has, proportionately, a greater amount of time spent writing new features, and a reduced amount of time stabilizing and fixing those features. That would be fine if the quality of the features were higher to start with, with the testing infrastructure to support it and higher standards before new code was integrated. But the experience with Windows 10 thus far is that Microsoft hasn't developed the processes and systems needed to sustain this new approach.

177 comments

  1. kde - dolphin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    nuff said

    1. Re:kde - dolphin by StormReaver · · Score: 1

      If you're implying the Dolphin was a humongous, mind-numbingly, horrendously stupid idea, I'm inclined to agree with you.

    2. Re: kde - dolphin by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      ^ posting AC because during a copy of large amount of files Dolphin ate half of them including his slashdot info

    3. Re: kde - dolphin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have a win 10 PC With an Explorer so unstable I need to use total commander for everything

      And each time steam, Windows or Fallout 4 updates... it breaks my game so I need to minimum Restart and make sure steam is started in offline mode

      When get to Play I am even suffering that win 10 allow All kind of stuff to minimize the game... And No IT has No virus except virus 10

    4. Re: kde - dolphin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is only the greatest file manager around.

      Says someone who's never used Directory Opus.

    5. Re: kde - dolphin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Posting AC so I can mod yo ass into the ground like Leon Black would do.

    6. Re: kde - dolphin by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      Leon Black would buy your forum in a leveraged buyout and then nuke your account

    7. Re: kde - dolphin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have a win 10 PC With an Explorer so unstable I need to use total commander for everything

      And each time steam, Windows or Fallout 4 updates... it breaks my game so I need to minimum Restart and make sure steam is started in offline mode

      When get to Play I am even suffering that win 10 allow All kind of stuff to minimize the game... And No IT has No virus except virus 10

      That's what happens when you don't know what the fuck you're doing and overclock the shit out of everything.

  2. Worst insult for a software developer by iTrawl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wow, that's Microsoft quality!

    --
    "Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
    1. Re:Worst insult for a software developer by Phylter · · Score: 1

      It seems everything was better with Windows before they lowered it's priority as a product.

    2. Re:Worst insult for a software developer by lgw · · Score: 2

      Wow, that's Microsoft quality!

      It's almost as if they fired their entire QA department in 2014. How that ever got to be a fad, I don't know.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    3. Re:Worst insult for a software developer by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      Wow, that's Microsoft quality!

      "either tests do not exist at all for this code (and I've been told that yes, it's permitted to integrate code without tests

      That pretty much tells it all. Violation of the prime directive.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    4. Re:Worst insult for a software developer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft is just applying Indian (lack of) quality. Not surprisingly when the company is dumb enough to make an indian CEO.

    5. Re: Worst insult for a software developer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I call this out as racist.

      As a Quality Manager for a company that almost went to the wall due to stupid workflow designs and by an (Indian) quality manager, my take is that you are at higger risk of buy these things with male Indian managers:

      1. hierarchy is mistaken for intelligence. Persons up the chain must be right, by dint of their place in the hierarchy. Underlings have nothing to contribute.

      2. There is a book of rules. It must be followed by everyone, even when it is stupid.

      3. Corollary to #2. Rule 2 does not apply to anyone to whom Rule 1 applies.

      A recipe for chaos that pretends to structure.

    6. Re: Worst insult for a software developer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bigger risk of buying a person who operates to these propositions,,,

  3. Windows is no longer a real operating system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Windows exists in a weird temporal space between the total phasing out of personal computers for goys, and the old days of personal software.
    Windows 10 will be the last version ever. That seems ridiculous if you assume it will last for decades, but the deprecation of personal computers is planned on a much shorter timescale.
    Who cares that your local data gets turned into mulch. It will all just be appy app apps in the cloud soon.

    1. Re:Windows is no longer a real operating system by sheramil · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Who cares that your local data gets turned into mulch. It will all just be appy app apps in the cloud soon.

      From the original post:

      "... a bug wherein deleting a directory that was synced to OneDrive crashed the machine.

      The Cloud was the problem here. One of the reasons I never use it.

    2. Re: Windows is no longer a real operating system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The first version of Windows that requires a periodic subscription is the day I go 100% Linux user. With increasing steam cross functionality I'm running out of reasons to keep Winblows around.

    3. Re: Windows is no longer a real operating system by mrobinso · · Score: 1

      The first version of Windows that requires a periodic subscription is the day I go 100% Linux user. With increasing steam cross functionality I'm running out of reasons to keep Winblows around.

      Yup.
      If anyone suggested that to me 5 years ago I'd have thought them nuts.
      Now, not so much.
      I'm even preparing myself for a steamless Linux desktop sooner rather than later, just because.

      --
      -- Karma whore? You betcha. --
    4. Re: Windows is no longer a real operating system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No that is an OS issue. The OS decided to crash because "file not found." That is hardly One Drive's problem.

    5. Re: Windows is no longer a real operating system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      my one-drive software frequently complains about filenames of files that were generated by visual studio 2010 - it would be a challenge for me to write software this bad -- In my opinion, Microsoft is the Yugo of software (though the scary part is that Apple and Linux desktop environments aren't that much better... I use all 3 in the hopes that at least one of them will work good enough for me to get my work done)

    6. Re: Windows is no longer a real operating system by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      I've been saying for years that the goal is to turn Windows into a monthly subscription service, and it looks like I was right.

      Office365, for example. A lot of people use it at $10 a month, and that number is only going to go up.

      Windows SE (Subscription Edition) isn't far behind.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    7. Re: Windows is no longer a real operating system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We need something better than Linux now that Linus has gone insane and the NPCs have taken over.

    8. Re: Windows is no longer a real operating system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Minix 3?

    9. Re: Windows is no longer a real operating system by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry to disappoint, Linus is back in the drivers seat of Linux. Check the front page.

  4. Re:Then who will write the apps by wolfheart111 · · Score: 1

    cant do that on a phone.

    --
    [($)]
  5. Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by blahplusplus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... computing. To turn PC's into locked down devices like phones. The masses are too stupid to understand what is happening and keep feeding all these companies money. Watching PC software freedom and games being literally stolen and turned into "services" because the average person on our planet is fucking chimp level intelligence is pretty fucking disgusting.

    1. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ... computing. To turn PC's into locked down devices like phones. The masses are too stupid to understand what is happening and keep feeding all these companies money.

      Wrong. The stupid masses now understand how stupid they really are, and buy tablets and smartphones instead of computers, which is why they're willing to now spend over $1000 on these "cheaper" devices. They already operate locked down devices, just like they drive locked down cars. Here's a little hint as to why; They don't want to maintain this shit, because they don't know how and don't want to learn. YOU pay good money to go visit a dentist at least once a year for the same damn reason; you don't have the expertise or the tools to maintain your teeth or do maintenance on them.

      What you're quick to call the "stupid" masses ends up being the 90% of society who is NOT inclined to take up IT as a part-time hobby to maintain complex systems. The masses want shit that "just works" when they turn it on, even if that means they have less control and less functionality.

      Watching PC software freedom and games being literally stolen and turned into "services" because the average person on our planet is fucking chimp level intelligence is pretty fucking disgusting.

      And the reason software is turning into services is because it creates perpetual revenue streams. Greed N. Corruption is the CEO of US Capitalism, Inc. so don't be so stupidly surprised when greed is prioritized over cutting the customer a break.

      But hey, if you really hate this shit, then go roll your own. There's always FOSS. Go for it instead of sitting on your ass bitching about it. You're asking the average idiot to buy a fully functional computer and learn to maintain it properly, so me asking you to go create your own OS is certainly fair.

    2. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "There's always FOSS. Go for it instead of sitting on your ass bitching about it."

      That's a highly questionable claim. You can still do that, but the day Microsoft feels they can get away with it, "secure boot" will, with 100% certainty become mandatory at least on consumer class gear, no keys will be handed out, and then FOSS is absolutely fucked.

      They are so close, all they have to do is to tell the OEM vendors that they will not be certified as Windows compatible if they allow you to disable it, and *poof*, there's FOSS gone. It's already started on some laptops.

    3. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by sheramil · · Score: 1

      YOU pay good money to go visit a dentist at least once a year for the same damn reason; you don't have the expertise or the tools to maintain your teeth or do maintenance on them.

      This toothbrush I am waving at you says otherwise. Yes, it's a talking toothrbrush.

    4. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by gtall · · Score: 1

      I see, so if someone were to offer you a job with better pay and an easier commute with better fringe benefits, you would turn it down because you are not greedy, not like those "other" guys?

    5. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I recently bought a new laptop that came with Windows 10. I gave it a chance while I explored the capabilities of the machine, but the locked-down nature of the OS was so off-putting to me (someone who's used to having root on their *nix based machines). I wiped and reinstalled with Linux Mint 18 and it is such a better experience now. I have full control over my machine, no corporate agenda, everything "just works". No forced reboot nonsense, either. No more crapware preinstalled. Seriously, Linux's time has come. It's better in every way.

    6. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Typical left wing nazi fascist ideology you have there. Everyone is stupid except you. Even though you're using Linux. Cough.

      Get the fuck out, the citizens of the world are allowing the robber barons to rob them, they undermine the rule of law for the rest of us in other aspects of society leading to dysfunction idiot.

    7. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Remember 20+ years ago when we bemoaned all the elderly and/or stupid people who couldn't seem to learn how to use an email client despite everyone's best efforts to educate them? Well guess what, Zombie Granny clawed her way out of her grave, got a job developing for Apple, and is pushing us all hard down the path to Idiocracy.

    8. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Oligonicella · · Score: 1

      A talking toothbrush that fills cavities. Nice. I do believe you purposely 'misunderstood' the point so you could snark.

    9. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Sique · · Score: 3, Interesting

      And the reason software is turning into services is because it creates perpetual revenue streams.

      Actually, you got it backwards. Patches and updates have been included in the price of software from the very beginning. What we had until recently was the requirement to pay our subscription fee for the software all upfront. But from a fiscal point of view, Software was always a subscription, as long as you got your patches and updates. You just never got the bill split up into the initial payment for the software and the subsequent payment for the software assurance subscription, as you had to pay for it all at once.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    10. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Actually, you got it backwards. Patches and updates have been included in the price of software from the very beginning. What we had until recently was the requirement to pay our subscription fee for the software all upfront. But from a fiscal point of view, Software was always a subscription, as long as you got your patches and updates. You just never got the bill split up into the initial payment for the software and the subsequent payment for the software assurance subscription, as you had to pay for it all at once.

      Disagree.

      The old model - physical media purchases pre-widespread-availability-of-broadband - meant that things had to work because distributing a patch on CD-ROM or a box of floppies was expensive. That meant that showstoppers/dealbreaking/dataloss bugs were expensive. That meant that software required QA.

      It also meant that things, once you got them to work, tended to keep working. It meant that tools like Photoshop (up to CS6, I guess, which was when they broke from purchase to Services as a Substitute for Software) had to offer upgrades that actually justified their prices. If Photoshop 7 from 2002 fills your needs (perhaps you're just doing some light retouching and don't need all the features added since then), the $600 piece of software that you purchased still works.

      Let's try it your way - $10/month, $120/y - 16 years later I'm up to $2000 and still paying. I could have repurchased a new version three times over for that time period (say, CS6) and still come out ahead.

      And let's look at the updates -- if we were having this discussion about Microsoft Word, maybe I'd get off the Office Upgrade Train when The Ribbon came out, and if we were having this discussion about Windows, maybe I'd get off the Windows Upgrade Train when Win8-for-Touch-Devices-Only or Win10-for-Beta-Testers-Only came out.

      Some upgrades are actually downgrades. If you're paying for a Service as a Substitute for Software, you're stuck with the downgrades or it all stops working. If you have locally-hosted software on your machine, you have the option to say "no" when quality declines below what you consider acceptable.

    11. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lol, "left wing nazi fascist". Wow, way to show your ignorance. Back to school boy. Maybe they'll tell you about Alfred Hugenberg and Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (that's a left wing name if there ever was one *snark*) this time.

    12. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Solandri · · Score: 1

      But from a fiscal point of view, Software was always a subscription, as long as you got your patches and updates. You just never got the bill split up into the initial payment for the software and the subsequent payment for the software assurance subscription, as you had to pay for it all at once.

      Technically, anything you buy which wears out is a subscription (rent). If you buy a washing machine for $500, which dies after 5 years (on average) and needs to be replaced with a new $500 washing machine, you are paying $100/year for the washing machine. If you buy a car (new or used) for $20k, use it for 5 years, and sell it for $10k, your car ownership is basically the same as renting for $2k/year.

      The resistance to a rental model is mainly because most people ignore maintenance and upkeep costs in their purchase decisions. You'll notice I left out the maintenance costs of the car in the above example and it probably never crossed your mind. So people's cursory fiscal analysis of renting vs buying tends to be skewed against renting, because they leave the maintenance and upkeep costs out on the buying side, but which are included as the norm in renting..

      Software is the exception however. Software doesn't wear out. If Office 2003 worked and had all the features you ever needed in 2003, then it still works and has all the features you ever needed in 2018. And your one-time payment for it in 2003 could be stretched out to 15+ years. The only issue with software is security patches. Which for an app really should never be an issue if the system were designed properly (require root/admin privileges for an app to do something which modifies the system, don't run third party scripts by default like Office likes to do).

      Adobe's Creative Cloud subscription prices are actually pretty reasonable. $120/year for Photoshop and Lightroom. Those used to have an upgrade cost of $150 and $120 respectively, with a new version coming out about every 1.5 years. So effectively their subscription price is the same as ($150 + $120) / ($120) = upgrading every 2.25 years. So cheaper than if you upgraded every version, more expensive than if you upgraded every other version. Back when I did a lot of photography I used to upgrade every other version, but overall I consider it priced pretty fairly. Except now that I do much less photography, the existing one-time-purchase copies of Photoshop and Lightroom I've still got are more than pulling their weight since I can still run them without needing to pay a subscription fee (they don't try to modify the system or run third party scripts, so security updates are unnecessary).

      Likewise, Office 365 is priced pretty reasonably too if you planned to stay current with updates. Purchasing Home and Student outright is $150. A one-seat subscription to Office 365 is $70/yr. So about the same as upgrading every 2 years. 6-seat license is $100/yr, which is equivalent to upgrading every 9 years. But is probably more realistically priced since most home users who bought Office illegally installed it on more than one computer at home. (Microsoft wasn't as nice as Adobe. Adobe allowed you to install Photoshop on multiple computers, as long as you only used one copy at a time. A realistic concession to many people having a laptop for travel, and a home PC which was more powerful for doing "real work.")

      I don't consider a subscription model valid for an OS though. The OS should work as long as the hardware works, because the two are useless without each other. The only way I'd consider a subscription model reasonable for an OS is if the seller also rents you the hardware for the same term as the OS subscription,. And takes care of any required software and hardware maintenance and fixes during that period.

    13. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nazi' were right wing Facists you numbskull.
      Your comment shows how little you know about the world outside your basement. /s

    14. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apart from playing multimedia in a browser. Every browser vendor refuses to support Linux hardware video decoding acceleration and accelerated rendering as well. Without those you'll burn through the laptop battery pretty quickly.

      Edge has a lot bad sides, but it still is the most efficient video playing browser on Windows. Even Chrome doesn't come close since it has to do video-through-compisiting-through-OpenGL-through-ANGLE-to-D3D conversions just for video rendering while Edge uses native Win32 video overlays that are natively accelerated by every GPU driver. Firefox is a dumpster fire that makes my ultabook's fans spin on youtube.

    15. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by blahplusplus · · Score: 1

      I don't consider a subscription model valid for an OS though.

      Sigh... the same thing was said at the beginning of MMO's where Ultima RPG's were all stand alone until the internet, and then the big shift began. All rpgs in development for the PC were relabelled and rebadged mmo's to get the drm into them which is why they all wanted it so bad. You get to lock down the software and control it. Anyway, it's way too late because windows 10 is already here, mmo's, steam, gacha mobile games.

    16. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      "left wing nazi fascist"

      LOL, the amount of sheer stupidity in that one bit could fill books.

      Half of those things are totally at odd with the other half, but don't you worry your pretty little head over it, okay? Sean Hannity will be along soon to tell you what to think. Or is that Jeanine Pirro's job?

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    17. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      But from a fiscal point of view, Software was always a subscription, as long as you got your patches and updates. You just never got the bill split up into the initial payment for the software and the subsequent payment for the software assurance subscription, as you had to pay for it all at once.

      No, that's the opposite of a subscription. In that model, you know how much you're paying. Paying by subscription is fine so long as it comes with updates, but it's a bit frustrating when you also have to pay for major versions.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    18. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I call bullshit on your "locked-down nature of the OS".
      Your admin user in win10 has all the power you need to do what you want.
      So there's some security measures in place by default. Big deal. If you are not an educated power user then you *should* be restricted to safe mode

    19. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you don't know what's restrictive in Windows then you either haven't been using it enough or aren't a power user yourself.
      Just look at all the online help requests for how to stop Windows from forcing reboots on people causing them to lose unsaved work, removing uninstallable apps, how to have it stop spying on you and forcing you to grant them rights to your content, restrictive licensing, interfering with alternative browser installations (pushing Edge on you), forced updates, forced app installs (ie. Skype), moving a Windows install to a different computer (non-transferrable license with new PCs), and so on.
      If that isn't restrictive then what is?

    20. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chrome doesn't come close since it has to do video-through-compisiting-through-OpenGL-through-ANGLE-to-D3D conversions

      It does that conversion because chrome is a multi-os browser so it sticks to standards aka opengl and it only does that conversion because microsoft chooses not to include opengl support with windows to f opengl over. If opengl support was standard in windows like directx is, that conversion step by chrome would not be necessary.

      Edge uses native Win32 video overlays that are natively accelerated by every GPU driver.

      Natively ONLY because directx is a mandatory install with windows. If you manually install the gpu drivers from amd, intel, nvidias website they will come with opengl drivers but if you just use the drivers that ship with windows you will have no opengl support but you will still have directx. So guess which one chrome has to support so it works on every windows install and guess what has to suffer because of this?

      Good thing a browser isn't just for watching netflix and youtube and when it comes to offline videos there are much better playback programs out there. Where battery life is of upmost important for watching netflix and youtube most people would probably be reaching for a different device not a laptop.

    21. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      One of the killer features of software rental is that everyone has the same version. This makes the software actually worth more IMO.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    22. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why are you so stupid? Is it genetic? Environmental? At lead paint chips as a child?

    23. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's always FOSS. Go for it instead of sitting on your ass bitching about it.

      Some of us do just that. We use FOSS and don't complain about a Microsoft we haven't used in decades.

      We don't bitch, we laugh. We tell relatives that 'No, I won't fix your computer. Because you're using windows and that is the source of your problems. And yet you insist on windows. And that is why you buy and "use up" three computers in a timespan I only needs one.'

    24. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by fuzznutz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Technically, anything you buy which wears out is a subscription (rent).

      The very first line of your entire premise is completely wrong. You cannot resale anything you rent. You can discontinue a rental at any time and you will have nothing left to show for your investment. You cannot pass of amortization as some sort of bogus rental strategy. They aren't even close.

      If you buy a washing machine for $500, which dies after 5 years (on average) and needs to be replaced with a new $500 washing machine, you are paying $100/year for the washing machine.

      I don't know where you've been buying washing machines, but I'd be furious if I spent $500 on a washer only to have to throw it away (no residual value) after five years. I have never in my life seen any washer fail catastrophically in five years - or less since you assert this is an average. A washer is considered a durable good.

      I got my current washer used - it came with the house - eight years ago. I spent a grand total of $3.00 on maintenance to replace a set of plastic ratcheting dogs in that eight years My previous washer I bought new and left it at the old house when I sold after six years of service.

      If you buy a car (new or used) for $20k, use it for 5 years, and sell it for $10k, your car ownership is basically the same as renting for $2k/year.

      No it is not. The cost may be the same but the concept is drastically different. If you rent a car, or lease, YOU DO NOT OWN THE CAR. If you scratch the paint, tear the upholstery, or just decide to replace the horn with one that plays La Cucaracha, you had better have your name on the title. If you rent or lease, you are using someone else's property and are expected to return it in the same condition you took it. You are looking at this as a simple dollars and sense proposition and ignoring all the other rights that come with ownership. THIS IS WHAT THE GP WAS SAYING!

      Software is the exception however. Software doesn't wear out.

      Software is not an exception. The same rules apply. Just because tangible goods depreciate does not mean software does not either. TurboTax 2009 will not suffice for tax year 2018 but works just as well as it did when new. The only difference is that software does not (generally) become unsuitable for purpose during that time frame you own it due to wear and tear. Photoshop 1.0 does not suddenly stop working just because it's outdated.

      Adobe's Creative Cloud subscription prices are actually pretty reasonable [adobe.com].

      For some values of "reasonable". If it is your intention to run on the upgrade treadmill, then yes, it's reasonable. If you expect to keep a software purchase and use it for a long time because it works for your purpose and you do not need to arbitrarily upgrade, then no, it is unreasonable. The problem is that it is no longer an option. Businesses like it because they can expense rentals. They do not like to track assets and depreciate them. Home users are not so fond of adding yet another monthly bill to the already long list.

      Except now that I do much less photography, the existing one-time-purchase copies of Photoshop and Lightroom I've still got are more than pulling their weight since I can still run them without needing to pay a subscription fee

      And right here you undermine the credibility of your entire post by admitting that unless you have a desire for the latest new shiny, a purchase is a better deal.

      I don't consider a subscription model valid for an OS though. The OS should work as long as the hardware works, because the two are useless without each other.

      That little problem is already covered. Microsoft drops support for old hardware continuously. Now your hardware AND software are useless.

    25. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by fuzznutz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      One of the killer features of software rental is that everyone has the same version. This makes the software actually worth more IMO.

      Not sure if you're trolling or just stupid... A killer feature for who?

      What about people who refused to upgrade Office because they hated the ribbon? Should they have just sucked it up and kept paying for something they didn't want and didn't like? How is it a killer feature when the "current" version drops the functionality you depend upon?

    26. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      The masses are too stupid to understand what is happening and keep feeding all these companies money.

      No, they just never cared for the freedom to screw with your OS in the first place. There's a lot of very smart people out there happy to give up a freedom which they don't see any point in exercising.

    27. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by strikethree · · Score: 1

      But hey, if you really hate this shit, then go roll your own. There's always FOSS. Go for it instead of sitting on your ass bitching about it.

      Has it maybe occurred to you that the person you are responding too HAS done what you asked and is STILL bitching about the situation? Yes, yes, it is certainly possible.

      I know that I have "rolled my own". And, I agree with the person you are responding to. Once the masses become comfortable with it, the laws will follow and then we will not be able to roll our own anymore. Everyone should say something about this situation.

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
    28. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      A killer feature for those of us that interact with other organizations.

      No file format issues, and no feature lacking issues even if the file format is the same.

      The fact that I receive a file and know I can open it, or send a file and know it can be opened as increased the value of Creative Suite and even to an extent Office (though there's plenty of old copies of Office floating around, so it's a lot less true there).

      No more does one need to back-save and hope everything remains in tact.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    29. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by fuzznutz · · Score: 1
      Ah, I see. Stupid...

      A killer feature for those of us that interact with other organizations.

      Your killer feature is merely a convenience factor for you. It has nothing to do with anything else but your personal convenience.

      No file format issues, and no feature lacking issues even if the file format is the same.

      Until the feature you use gets deprecated and you are forced to move on and get by without it. Software vendors don't drop features we like for no reason, do they?

      The fact that I receive a file and know I can open it, or send a file and know it can be opened as increased the value of Creative Suite and even to an extent Office (though there's plenty of old copies of Office floating around, so it's a lot less true there).

      So it's important enough to be _The Killer Feature_ unless it's not really.

      No more does one need to back-save and hope everything remains in tact.

      Clearly, you are an advocate for open file formats but you apparently just don't realize it. That is not the same thing as advocating subscription based software. If you at least put some thought into it an tried to claim an advantage with training or support, maybe you could have gotten away with it, but your killer feature is nothing more than a minor narcissistic convenience for you and nobody else but you. You think everyone else should pay perpetually for software so you can import files easier.

    30. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      I'm definitely pro open file formats. I'm well aware of that fact.

      They still don't solve the issue of features (for example formula compatibility in ODF spreadsheets is (or at least was) not a given).

      And yes, convenience/ability to share editable files does increase the value of software, that should be obvious. Being able to collaborate is pretty important.

      The fact that people use old copies of Office does make sending and receiving files to/from office users a pain. Dealing with Office files is a pain in the ass anyway, but it's made even worse by the fact that there are at least 3 versions in regular use.

      FOSS software solves the problem with versioning (like a subscription does), but open file formats only barely do.

      Do you really think it wasn't inconvenient when people had mismatched versions of Creative Suite and tried to exchange files? How about with Office?

      Office was at least pretty decent, 99% forward compatible and 95% backwards compatible for the most part (some bugs in the docx/xlsx parsing created minor issues, and in the 90s word had some changes in how the same file displayed (this is ignoring the issues with print driver selected also altering rendering)

      I hardly think I was the only person that felt that inconvenience.

      Maybe it's narcissistic to think reliable and easy data exchange is a killer feature for software, but I don't really see how.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
    31. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by fuzznutz · · Score: 1

      Maybe it's narcissistic to think reliable and easy data exchange is a killer feature for software, but I don't really see how.

      I'll be kind. We'll chalk it up to naïveté.

      A killer feature is something that causes unexpected and massive (voluntary) uptake. Adding the app store to IOS was a killer feature. Adding pre-emptive multitasking to Windows in 95 was a killer feature. Streetview on Google Maps was a killer feature. Killer features are the things that make people want to run out and buy just to get access to. I don't see anyone (except you) happy to pay more money and become Adobe or Microsoft's beta tester just so they can trade files a little easier. And I have never heard anyone say the value proposition is better than purchase once that subscription runs out and they have to renew or do without.

      Eventually everybody gets tired of running on that upgrade treadmill. When you reach that point with your software subscription, you'll find you have nothing to show for all you payments but maybe a lot of "interchangeable" data that is totally useless to you.

    32. Re:Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down... by AvitarX · · Score: 1

      Fair-point WRT to killer feature I guess/

      Uptake of Creative Cloud did seem pretty fast in my observations, Though I'd bet it had more to do with short-term capital outlay than it did everyone being on the same version. If one was buying for the first time it was about 3 years before it was cheaper to buy, and even if one was upgrading more than one version it was a while before it became more expensive.

      It's interchangeable, if it's so rarely used as to not be worth a reasonable subscription (which we don't really know if that'll be the case in the future, which is a problem) one can simply abuse free trials or short subscriptions, or even just pay a professional to do what needs to be done.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
  6. Pregnant Elsa Spiderman by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By 2025 all apps will be written by machine learning algorithms, and be nothing except Joker and the Hulk booting a kid in the head, while Spiderman goes shopping with Elsa.

    This is what the tech singularity looks like. Screencap this post for future reference.

    1. Re:Pregnant Elsa Spiderman by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well of course the ultimate goal is to get absolutely everyone staring catatonically at a blinking screen all day, pausing only to reach for their credit card now and then.

    2. Re:Pregnant Elsa Spiderman by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well of course the ultimate goal is to get absolutely everyone staring catatonically at a blinking screen all day, pausing only to reach for their credit card now and then.

      Really? So I've already reached the ultimate goal!

  7. May have happened with the previous update by ytene · · Score: 4, Interesting

    During the April update this year, I had 3 W10 installations to get through the process. None of them worked, although one in particular went spectacularly wrong and wiped out files on the system's hidden boot partition, basically resulting in the system attempting to reboot and crashing out. There was no choice left but to perform a clean installation, then let that fresh image update.

    The broken process left all sorts of log and event files scattered across my SSD and I provided them to MS, who were unable to determine the cause.

    The really interesting thing for me is that the image that ate itself happens to run on the same hardware as another W10 image. I have 2 licensed copies of Windows and I use a "drive bay" to swap different bootable drives in to the same hardware. So when I upgraded the "other" image on the same platform, I was surprised to see the upgrade generate a completely different set of errors.

    The biggest configuration difference between these two builds is that I use one for gaming and one for office work. Although both had the latest nVidia drivers on board, the gaming build used nVidia desktop "Surround" to create a single workspace of 5760x1200, whilst the office build just treated the display space as 3 connected monitors.

    The most frustrating thing is that the feedback I was getting from the triage team who helped me (they were all volunteers and they were all excellent) was that MS had been shipping code they knew to have multiple bugs and issues in it. The problem they were having in triage was that there were *so many* bugs, it was proving next to impossible to narrow down to a specific fault.

    Nadella might have turned around Microsoft's economic slide into oblivion, but his governance of the technical robustness of his company's products is, sadly, non-existent. Worse for me, both of these W10 licenses were for new-build hardware; I had no older licenses that I could grandfather in, so I'm out of pocket over £400 and have 2 systems [one box] that I simply don't trust to work reliably when MS push updates. If it were a case of "free but buggy or purchased but robust", I'd take "purchased but robust" every time. What I've actually got is "purchased but buggy". The most offensive thing is: Microsoft's actions - their continued pushing of buggy code, when there are NO COMMERCIAL DRIVERS FOR DOING SO is just plain offensive.

    I wish they would just stop. Produce zero new features until ALL the bugs are squashed.

    There's a reason I'm writing this post whilst running Mint Linux - and it's because I'm not trusting Windows at the moment. If I don't need to go back to Windows, I won't. I have nothing but respect and admiration for the triage volunteers over there, but Microsoft the company really don't care. That stinks.

    1. Re:May have happened with the previous update by uffe_nordholm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think you are wrong about the "Microsoft the company really don't care" bit: Microsoft do care. In fact, I think they care very much. The thing is that they don't care about you, the end user, they only care about themselves and their profits. To Microsoft you are just a source of money, and once you have payed your money and they can't get you to pay more, they have no interest in you what so ever; they will spend the time and energy they could have spent on helping you on finding another customer to loot for money, or another way to make customers pay more money.

    2. Re:May have happened with the previous update by Tough+Love · · Score: 4, Insightful

      During the April update this year, I had 3 W10 installations to get through the process. None of them worked, although one in particular went spectacularly wrong and wiped out files on the system's hidden boot partition, basically resulting in the system attempting to reboot and crashing out. There was no choice left but to perform a clean installation, then let that fresh image update.

      In all my years of using Linux, 20 now, I have never once been forced to do a reinstall. I actually have one system that was continuously upgraded from Debian potato in 2003 through to Stretch today and is still running, having worked its way through three or four hard disks, one of which was a head crash salvaged by ddrescue. Some of the version upgrades were a little exciting in the old days in the sense that manual intervention was sometimes required even to the point of hand editing apt db files. It pretty much just automagically worked for the last dozen years or so, e.g., edit sources.list from Stretch to Buster, apt update then apt dist-upgrade.

      I guess Windows users have a hard time imagining anything so reliable. BTW, the longest uptime for that server was about three years at one point. And it was 32 bit all that time, still is. Finally migrated all the services to a NUC running 64 bit Debian, but that old system, a Pentium M, is still running as a storage backup server. It runs KDE by the way, for the rare occasions I hook a monitor to it. Works perfectly well, that's something for the Gnome trolls to meditate on. Today, that machine is probably less powerful than my thermostat.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    3. Re:May have happened with the previous update by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not just you. I'm not running quite as long a time as you on the same flavor of Linux, as I experimented with Linux From Scratch and Gentoo for some time, went through Debian and ended up with Ubuntu (this particular 'server' served as my desktop for quite some time until I switched to laptops only use for my desktop needs :)). That computer's hardware has been upgraded step by step through at least the last 15 years or so. I never went back from Ubuntu to Debian (had to use Ubuntu at some point as Debian was horribly out of date desktop wise). Instead of going back to pure Debian though, I just switched from the Ubuntu desktop meta-package to the server variant as I also replaced the other role the server was playing with a separate piece of hardware (television frontend).

      Instead of a drive crash I went through a Ubuntu bug that made it impossible to properly assemble my software raid and LVM on top of that after an upgrade (IIRC something about /boot being on raid too). I don't quite remember all of it, but I booted into the old installation disk's console and was able to fix it all up through there. Now I just have a separate /boot on each of the boot drives that I have to keep up to date manually instead of using the raid for that.

      Captcha: respects. Damn right I respect Linux! :)

    4. Re:May have happened with the previous update by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, this is certainly true. I imagine the reason they laid off the testing staff was because some manager found out how many testers Google employed, and told everyone "Hey, if Google can do it with X testers, so can we!", skipping the part where they built the automation to replace the missing people. Yes, it was probably as simple as matching costs to some "industry standard" that got those people laid off.

  8. Just use LTSB by leathered · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you have to use Windows 10, use the LTSB version. No Windows Store, no Edge, no Cortana, no platform updates, security updates only with minimal telemetry.

    Microsoft don't want you to know about LTSB and do their best to hide its existence, but it's really what Windows 10 Pro should have been.

    --
    For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
    1. Re:Just use LTSB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's also not capable of running Visual Studio 2017 while even Windows 7 can. No deal.

    2. Re:Just use LTSB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which comes with it's own great feature of when rebooting, "Getting windows ready . . . ", which takes between 30 minutes and 3 hours to shutdown.
      Check event viewer, and it wasn't doing anything visible.

    3. Re:Just use LTSB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's running cleanmgr.exe to clean up Windows Update bullshit. You can run it while logged on - it will hog 2 CPU cores for *even longer* than the last update installation took. They have super-great database design for WU it seems. It is almost baffling how bad it is considering they have 3 separate database products with different engines to choose from. This process will also free *gigabytes* of space from the system drive...

    4. Re:Just use LTSB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can you buy that without "renting" it?

    5. Re:Just use LTSB by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Microsoft don't want you to know about LTSB and do their best to hide its existence, but it's really what Windows 10 Pro should have been.

      Microsoft is doing its best to discourage using it even for normal servers, probably the biggest is that there will be no new hardware support so you can't run one version for your enterprise. It's really targeted at embedded systems and such, though I agree something like that minus domain support would be a great consumer OS. Too bad that won't happen.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    6. Re:Just use LTSB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is what KMSPico is for.

    7. Re:Just use LTSB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What are you talking about? Windows 10 in any "version" be it 1503 or 1809 has the same driver model (apart from some useless GPU features). What is more it is able to easily use earlier drivers for Windows 7 or 8(.1) as long as they are the same architecture (e.g. x86 or x64). There have been no "new hardware support" requirements for a long time. You can easily run Windows 7 on Ryzen 2. Only after you apply the latest Microsoft "updates" will it complain nagging you to get Win 10 because "reasons".

      The only problem I can see is Intel, probably being forced by Microsoft, refusing to release working drivers for latest iGPUs for 7/8.1. Adding a cheap PCIe GPU will solve that if needed. Or use some 3rd party modified drivers from Win10 which, surprise surprise, work.

    8. Re:Just use LTSB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "minimal telemetry."

      I'm confused, "minimal telemetry" implies some telemetry, which is significantly more than the "zero telemetry" the OS requires to function, in which case it isn't minimal.

      Maybe "slightly less telemetry" would have been a better choice of words.

    9. Re:Just use LTSB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I made the same push at work; however, we still see lots of issues with updates breaking the system especially in regards to having to use McAfee AV with the systems. Every 6 months or so we spend days trying to get stuff working again.,, Making a big push for Linux now due to the issues with Win10 and the onerous licensing cost of Windows Server on newer mutli-core hardware. A minimum of 16 cores must be licensed across 2 processors which brings the cost in line with older versions of Server; however, newer systems have up to 64 cores in a dual processor system making the system 4 times as expensive to license as a previous version of Server. They also changed the VM licensing so that you're pretty much pushed to the Data Center edition again if you want to run more than a few VMs. As someone else said in the comments here, Nadella turned around Microsoft's financial results; however, it's been totally at the cost of the end user.

    10. Re:Just use LTSB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By minimal he means oh you know... the things Windows always did even in 7 like sending the serial numbers of every USB device you ever plugged in to Microsoft. Just in case.

      Full telemetry sends them everything you type, every address you visit and so on. The EU forced them to add in a tool to list those things so it's not like it's secret. Most of it can also be disabled either via GUI or registry (shutup10).

    11. Re: Just use LTSB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah they actively block what programs it can run.

      My guess is this is to stop people using it.

    12. Re:Just use LTSB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, using old Ubuntu. Next up will be Linux Mint.

      Steam. Netflix. HTML3.

      I can tweak. Fix things myself. Read the disks. Understand and learn.

      On Ignore

    13. Re: Just use LTSB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you know how ms can make visual studio free to everyone? It is telemetry-ware aka spyware. But since ltsb has the telemetry support taken out it cant run visual studio which still has the telemetry baked into it.

    14. Re: Just use LTSB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Telemetry is not taken out, lol. The problem is that LTSB doesn't have the new "Metro" or whatever it's called this week subsystem at all. VS team is too lazy to make a distinction in their VS code for Win10 support. For earlier versions of Windows the runtime for UWP is shipped with VS, but Win10 is supposed to have this built-in and LTSB does not.

    15. Re:Just use LTSB by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      No Windows Store, no Edge, no Cortana, no platform updates,

      You left out the most important bit: No option to legally obtain it.

    16. Re:Just use LTSB by nasch · · Score: 1

      I don't think your advice is generally applicable: "LTSB is a licensing option for Windows 10 Enterprise and is available only for customers with a Volume License agreement."

      http://www.techproresearch.com...

  9. The ads are the product with a free OS by AHuxley · · Score: 2

    The end users are the people paying to place ads.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    1. Re:The ads are the product with a free OS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not a free OS. You still have to pay for a license for it. New devices have that license fee built in to the price.

  10. No surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    When a company has a monopoly, this is what happens. They maximize their price and then, usually later, start cutting every corner possible to minimize cost.

    And when it comes to programming projects, based on my long experience at the hands of managers at various companies, I'm sure I know at least part of what's contributing to this MS mess: There's a very long-running cultural bias among managers, particularly the less experienced ones, against spending resources on testing. I've seen this play out time and time again. An organization has a process in place that works reasonably well (and in some cases very well), and new managers are convinced that they can be much more aggressive, cut all that time and money "wasted" on testing, and then a quality shit storm like this MS debacle happens.

    MS will learn a painful lesson, tighten up their procedures, and then when another idiot manager comes along it will happen all over again.

  11. A larger systemic issue, already in Win 10 beta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    These problems have existed for well over 2 years now. Back in the beginning it was that files would appear again after having been deleted, or the trashcan not emptying.

    Just a few months ago, one day after reinstalling Windows 10, all apps and programs installed in the last day disappeared, with no notice or any kind of error being reported.

    These things shouldn't happen by themselves, so I suspect there's a lot more control under the hood for Microsoft, to literally remove, add, or edit your files or documents, and now a larger systemic issue makes this functionality fail and people see their files go missing.

    If you are doing any kind of crucial or sensitive work, you would do well in consider switching away from Windows. Not just because files could go missing, but because of how seemingly Microsoft has access to your sensitive files.

  12. That's why cloud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This notoriously devious company is just seeding people's mistrust in their own storage.
    Of course, there's a solution that Microsoft is selling: Online storage.

    1. Re: That's why cloud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If Microsoft can't manage storage on their own operating system properly, why would I trust it to be safe "in the cloud" if it is their cloud?

  13. Windows 10 QA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What are you talking about, there is no room for that at the bottom line.

    SHIP IT NOW. Fuck the users.

  14. cocaine + developers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    At this point I sorta almost miss Ballmer all coked up out of his mind "Developers, Developers, Developers!"

    In days past, while Microsoft still sucked, at least they were more predictable to the point where one could "deal with" and manage their shit. Seriously, it could be done.

    Now it's all completely insane unpredictable chaos to the point where it's damn near impossible to manage their shit in any sort of professional manner, because we all are part of some fucked up beta testing appy app as a service experiment.

    In conclusion, I believe we need more luddite developers who can do several lines of coke before coding, to make Windows development great again.

    1. Re:cocaine + developers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Got worse since they put a H1B in charge. Coincidence I'm sure.

  15. Technical Testing and Audit Logs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or you could look at the logs
    After testing, eyeball and files deleted
    Check storage use before/after
    Check security permissions on those files (may hurt backups)
    Check memory for fragmentation/lost memory/dirty leftovers.

    Miscrosoft took over a mob called SysInternals. Clearly the testers do no use such tools or their brains, but stick to dumb scripts approved by comittee groupthink.

    1. Re: Technical Testing and Audit Logs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They should be putting dummy files in the user directories and a list of all files before and after installing the update, then if there's a mismatch in the list they better have a good explaination on hand or pull the patch for more work! This is both so easy a short batch file could do it and so fast it would take just a minute or two after each build! That should be standard procedure for EVERY build forever considering that windows deals with user files and it's so obvious a test that there really is no excuse not to. They are lucky there's probably legalese protecting them somewhere in that insane EULA from lawsuits over the data loss or that the updates didn't get to the vast majority of users before it was too late!

  16. Issue Sounds Like Gobbledeegoop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bug. Problem. BugBug. Psychobabble.

  17. Guess I'm sticking with Win8.1 and classic shell by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've been running Win 8.1 with classic shell and I haven't had any of these problems, probably because they haven't produced a major update since I originally installed it. Guess I'll stick with it a bit longer. (Classic shell makes 8.1 a decent OS.)

    --
    Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
  18. Re: Amen! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LTSB will soon be renamed to LTSC. I just call it LTS. I had to install some missing codecs to get movies running smooth though.

    I install W10Ent LTS as last resort. First i try Linux Devuan, then Linux Mint. Then Win7 and even W8.1 before i infect a computer with W10-malware.

  19. Like open source. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft's new development process has, proportionately, a greater amount of time spent writing new features, and a reduced amount of time stabilizing and fixing those features. That would be fine if the quality of the features were higher to start with, with the testing infrastructure to support it and higher standards before new code was integrated. But the experience with Windows 10 thus far is that Microsoft hasn't developed the processes and systems needed to sustain this new approach.

    So in other words they develop just like open source, and use their users as bug testers. Right down to the "oh shiny feature" is more important than "oh fixed feature".

  20. Unimaginably horrible code base by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    It just makes me shudder to think how unimaginably horrible the Windows 10 code base must have become to let a grade school bug like that through to production. What the hell! Did they lather a bunch of cloud pollution on top of the local file APIs to the point where nobody can read or understand their code any more? And on top of that, roughly zero regression testing? Do any adults remain at Microsoft?

    Needless to say, Linux will not do that to you. Something about the Unix philosophy.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    1. Re:Unimaginably horrible code base by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It just makes me shudder to think how unimaginably horrible the Windows 10 code base must have become to let a grade school bug like that through to production. What the hell! Did they lather a bunch of cloud pollution on top of the local file APIs to the point where nobody can read or understand their code any more? And on top of that, roughly zero regression testing? Do any adults remain at Microsoft?

      Needless to say, Linux will not do that to you. Something about the Unix philosophy.

      You might be talking about the Linux kernel.. but the whole of the Linux compatible userland software? Have you read the security issues of flatpaks? Old dependencies galore. Gnome had a regressive memory bug for how long? Here is the top link from a random search. https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2018/03/gnome-shell-memory-leak-is-being-fixed. Unix Philosophy? So ill just drop the dirty word.. systemd. People are fallible, maybe thats the problem.

    2. Re:Unimaginably horrible code base by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It just makes me shudder to think how unimaginably horrible the Windows 10 code base must have become to let a grade school bug like that through to production. What the hell! Did they lather a bunch of cloud pollution on top of the local file APIs to the point where nobody can read or understand their code any more? And on top of that, roughly zero regression testing? Do any adults remain at Microsoft?

      Needless to say, Linux will not do that to you. Something about the Unix philosophy.

      Don't worry, they're working on that. It's called systemd!

    3. Re:Unimaginably horrible code base by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Which of those deleted your files?

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    4. Re:Unimaginably horrible code base by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      As a project, Systemd is a hungry obnoxious octopus, but as a system its decently modular. Not a huge fan, but it has given me almost no trouble, and when I did go in to customize it to my tastes, like adding rc.local, it was a straightforward learning experience without follow-on maintainability issues.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    5. Re:Unimaginably horrible code base by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All of them.

    6. Re:Unimaginably horrible code base by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      I detect a troll.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  21. Re:Guess I'm sticking with Win8.1 and classic shel by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 1

    I'd be concerned that nainstream status for Windows 8 ended on January 1, 2018. While you can get extended support for years longer, I'd not expect mainstream software releases to be thoroughly tested or necessarily compatible with it.

  22. Man, modern software sure is wonderful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can't even get a filesystem right anymore. Stuff that was solved in the 1960s.

  23. Windows or Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They keep this up and they won't have much of a Windows base left if people HAVE to move to things like Linux, Mac OS, Android to avoid losing files and the costs of porting applications over is cheaper than having to deal with file destroying bugs constantly.

    1. Re: Windows or Linux? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In 2 years after SJWs have reduced Linux to a mess of poseurs in a pissing match over progressive virtue signaling you will have precisely zero options left.

  24. Modern filesystem/wife killin' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's what Hans Reiser's wife said.

    1. Re: Modern filesystem/wife killin' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Holy shit, pal.

  25. Surveillance capitalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Surveillance capitalism doesn't care about the distinction between free and rented. They're going to grab your metadata anyway, because that's where the value is.

    This is really an abstraction of a power relationship. You get data-harevested because you're just a dumb subject. The surveillance capitalists get to harvest you because FUCK YOU we're in charge.

  26. Not a bug, it's a feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Deleting user files means the user gets to pay for them again.
    Music and gaming companies get twice the profit!
    Now that they can't change formats from 8 track tape to Compact Disc, these companies now have to rely on corrupted files to increase profits.
    Microsoft is simply giving them what they want.

  27. Re:Guess I'm sticking with Win8.1 and classic shel by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'd be concerned that nainstream status for Windows 8 ended on January 1, 2018. While you can get extended support for years longer, I'd not expect mainstream software releases to be thoroughly tested or necessarily compatible with it.

    Not getting updates from Windows is a security plus.

    Seriously, I have had more problems with machines being rendered malfunctioning, files deleted, drivers renamed on Windows 10 than I have had in my entire life.

    Windows 10 updates are a worse virus than any blackhat virus.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  28. Sorry, you're stuck in the past by Kjella · · Score: 2

    Worst insult for a software developer: Wow, that's Microsoft quality!

    Is it the 90s again? I used win2k/xp in the naughties, win7 for most of this decade, at work they're all Microsoft with Windows/Outlook/Office + SQL Server and honestly the code is quite okay. The big issues are usually design choices like UAC, the ribbon, UWP, telemetry, ads etc. though of course they can have a bad bug. So can Linux and open source. In fact most project except the kernel seem chronically understaffed and whenever there is a bad bug it turns out there's just a handful of volunteers making due or sometimes even just a one man band.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    1. Re: Sorry, you're stuck in the past by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      We need to be careful about how we minimize bugs. It is one thing to categorize something as an annoyance, like not being able to highlight the last character in a PDF. It is quite another to have the operating system behave in quite unexpected ways with respect to how it handles files on disk.

    2. Re:Sorry, you're stuck in the past by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      This is, I believe, due in large part to the "stack ranking" method of management that they inflicted on their employees for so long.

      They screwed the good people, kept the brown-nosing losers, and years later, here we are. Shit software from a dysfunctional company that couldn't find its way out of a phone booth with a squad of Army Rangers to show them the way.

      I saw so many good people get screwed by stack ranking that it seriously made me question if a competitor had come up with the idea and implemented it at Microsoft in order to cripple them.

      But I suspect that. like a lot of corporate failures, stack ranking was a 100% self-inflicted wound.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  29. Missing option by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Either tests do not exist at all for this code (and I've been told that yes, it's permitted to integrate code without tests, though I would hope this isn't the norm), or test failures are being regarded as acceptable, non-blocking issues, and developers are being allowed to integrate code that they know doesn't work properly...

    Third option: Microsoft has tests, but not one that would discover this particular issue. Failure to consider all possible test cases is not itself evidence that there aren't any tests, and it's not evidence that the company ships known failure cases.

    1. Re: Missing option by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Back in 2014 or so, MS fired a shit ton of testers and instituted a mandate that developers had to do their own QA, but that the project velocity must remain the same.

  30. I have no file issues... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See Subject:Crazy as a FOX ("20th century FOX" me, lol)

    My hosts file engine will soon rival the best security measures ever conceived by a retarded 5 year old

    Soon it will be ported to HP-UX followed by Tru64 with windows 3.11 shortly there after

    Eventually even on Novell Netware

    I will be hosting my roomates BBC in my ass tonight, but he might try double fisting it too

    APK

    P.S. -> My parents felt sorry for not aborting me so they sold their house to me for $1 so I wouldn't have to sleep on the streets. I replaced the carpet that smelled like cat pee and spent $35,000 on it to cover 1200 sq. ft. so I think I got a good deal... apk

  31. "new development process"? by acroyear · · Score: 2

    reads to me like nothing has changed in their processes for more than 30 years.

    --
    "But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
    -- Joe
    1. Re: "new development process"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh it has changed. In the older days they had QA. Now devs have to do their own QA on top of dev work, with the same expected project velocity.

    2. Re:"new development process"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yea it has.. microsoft fired their QA and replaced that with users.

  32. Unfettered piece of manure by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2
    My good laptop that I use for several audio applications stopped functioning after this update.

    For reasons unknown, Windows in it's infinite wisdom, went through all of the audio drivers, and renamed them the with one of the driver's name, with a number appended to them. Then after deleting and reinstalling the drivers, continued to rename them incorrectly

    The problem is so whacked that the company I bought the equipment and software from did a Teamviewer session with me to show how to fix the problem. Explaining would have taken all day.

    Which I suspect is fixing it until the next update. In the meantime, I'm going through the computer to see what else they screwed up.

    This is not a matter of running in VMs, or performing arcane tricks to disable updates.

    This is a matter of a company so incompetent that their updates are an attack upon it's customers. Attacks so nasty that malicious virus writers must be in awe.

    Where an old operating system like W7 is more secure because it doesn't get updates.

    Meanwhile, I've switched everything except that one laptop to Linux or MacOS. Where any update that screws the OS will be the first.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    1. Re:Unfettered piece of manure by mea2214 · · Score: 1

      Where an old operating system like W7 is more secure because it doesn't get updates.

      Just purchased a prebuilt refurbished box that always come preinstalled with Windows. I activate Windows and get it working, then pull and replace it with a Linux boot. This way in a couple of years I can put the Windows drive back and sell it or give it away. They still had Windows 7 boxes. The same box with Windows 10 pro cost $20 less. I chose to pay the $20.

    2. Re:Unfettered piece of manure by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      They still had Windows 7 boxes. The same box with Windows 10 pro cost $20 less. I chose to pay the $20.

      Wise move. Windows 10 is a liability, worse than most viruses.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    3. Re:Unfettered piece of manure by strikethree · · Score: 1

      Do you remember back when Microsoft first offered updating drivers as well as security fixes? Way way back when? Yeah. They sucked then too and common wisdom was to uncheck updating drivers. Unfortunately, we can't do that anymore and here we are.

      I use Linux exclusively anymore. I do have dual boot and I boot into Windows every now and then to run updates on it, but I do all of my gaming, coding, etc in Linux. I would do OpenBSD instead, but gaming is important enough to me to leave me on Linux instead. Currently on Mint 17 but I am in the process of developing my own distribution from scratch that covers most of what I think is important. I may share my distro, but there are hundreds and mine won't offer anything special other than being from my point of view and it certainly won't be as flexible and/or user friendly as Debian/Fedora, etc.

      --
      "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
    4. Re:Unfettered piece of manure by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      Do you remember back when Microsoft first offered updating drivers as well as security fixes? Way way back when? Yeah. They sucked then too and common wisdom was to uncheck updating drivers. Unfortunately, we can't do that anymore and here we are.

      Yup. I just found two new drivers it renamed. 20 damned drivers so far.

      I use Linux exclusively anymore. I do have dual boot and I boot into Windows every now and then to run updates on it, but I do all of my gaming, coding, etc in Linux. I would do OpenBSD instead, but gaming is important enough to me to leave me on Linux instead.

      Linux or any Unixy OS is the way to go. BSD is obviously great, but there's your games. After my wife refused to use her Windows computer, I put Mint on it. She hasn't looked back, and she's barely computer literate. 100 percent uptime for her. I was Windows free until 2016 when I bought a piece of equipment that only had Windows software. Fortunately there is a version for MacOS now, and a really good version of the software for iOS (what the hell?) Next version of MacOS is supposed to run iOS software, so I might take a second amendment solution on the Windows laptop.

      But dammit, why no Linux version?

      Meanwhile I have my cheap breakfast computer that I take to breakfast, and it had W10 on it. But last week after it had it's third update in the restaurant after it ignored not downloading on a metered connection, it now is Minty fresh.

      Currently on Mint 17 but I am in the process of developing my own distribution from scratch that covers most of what I think is important. I may share my distro, but there are hundreds and mine won't offer anything special other than being from my point of view and it certainly won't be as flexible and/or user friendly as Debian/Fedora, etc.

      Bravo! I tell folks that they can indeed roll their own, and it is good to see someone doing it.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  33. Re:FOSS vs Junkware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    No worries, one day europe will produce a piece of software people actually use.

  34. Re: FOSS vs Junkware by cyber-vandal · · Score: 2

    You mean Linux?

  35. W10 could never move two folders at once by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since upgrading to Windows 10, almost any time I ever tried moving two different, large folders to two different places, one of the move processes would just hang and then explorer would crash.

    It's also much faster to do in PowerShell because I don't have to wait for "Calculating..." anything

    Heck, even when I copy a bunch of files somewhere and there are a few hundred duplicates, and I click "No (do not overwrite)", the progress bar would still churn and then go all the way to the end even though nothing happened!

    Someone needs to gently take MS' hand and guide them back to fundamentals.

  36. This type of bugs by kzwork · · Score: 1

    This type of bugs only show that Windows OS is a spaghetti code, no matter how many pictures they draw with layers, blocks and modules, they don't follow these.The code is all over the place and touching something breaks something else which looks like unrelated.

  37. Use --metadata=1.0 on the boot partition by raymorris · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Raid on the boot partition "just works", reliably no matter what, if you use mdadm --metadata=1.0 when you create it

    What that does is put the raid metadata at the end of the device. Anything that isn't raid-aware (your bios) just sees a standard filesystem, and doesn't care about the other parititions or whatever else comes AFTER the filesystem. Once the kernel launches and starts mounting filesystems, it session the raid metadata and treats it as raid.

    That works because the things that don't understand raid, such as your bios, only read the data, they don't write to it. Therefore there's no worries about writing the same thing to both copies. It's only written to after the raid is mounted.

    If you test that out, check to see if both drives are marked as bootable in the partition table.

    If both are already marked bootable, you're good to go.

      If they aren't currently and you change that, making that change could change which drive ends up being called sda.

    If they aren't currently both bootable and you do not mark the other one bootable, you'd need to do so if the bootable drive fails.

  38. Re:Guess I'm sticking with Win8.1 and classic shel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Windows 8.1 is not Windows 8! 8.1 is supported till January 2023.

  39. Re: Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The real point is that if you use your toothbrush you don't get cavaties

  40. Re: FOSS vs Junkware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He lives in Portland Oregon, you know.

    Couldn't wait to get out of that socialist "paradise".

  41. Simple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Use and actual software built for the job, Winrar. It's that expensive, compresses more, and they actually care about the reliability of their software, in almost 25 years of using RAR/Winrar I NEVER had any issue what so ever.

    1. Re: Simple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I paid for winrar

  42. Re: Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have fillings. I brush twice a day and don't eat sugar-loaded foods or drink anything other than water and milk, so no enamel-destroying carbonated beverages. These are not new behaviors adopted after getting the fillings. Sometimes shit just happens.

  43. OneDrive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The problems seem to circulate around the OneDrive. Again. Burn it from the system, like the cancer it is.

  44. Re:Guess I'm sticking with Win8.1 and classic shel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd be concerned that nainstream status for Windows 8 ended on January 1, 2018. While you can get extended support for years longer, I'd not expect mainstream software releases to be thoroughly tested or necessarily compatible with it.

    >implying that any of the shitware in Win10 has neen thoroughly tested.

  45. Win10 is still experimental by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have 1 test machine on win10. I've had only 1 since it launched. It doesn't look like it will ever advance past the experimental stage. At this point I don't anticipate ever rolling it out.

  46. Microsoft was badly managed 10 years ago. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Quote the parent comment: Microsoft's "... insane unpredictable chaos..."

    The Microsoft chaos existed 10 years ago, but yes, the chaos is worse now. See this Scientific American article: Microsoft Vista voted tech world's top "Fiasco" (Feb. 26, 2009)
    It's amazing that a company can be so badly managed that there is an article about it in Scientific American magazine.

    A year before that article: Vista's 11 Pillars of Failure. (April 21, 2008)
    Some of John C. Dvorak's complaints:
    6) Bogus Vista-capable stickers.
    7) Missing drivers.
    8) Conflicting advice.
    11) Performance. You're not supposed to deliver a new operating system that's been in development for more than four years yet performs worse than the previous OS.

    A Slashdot comment I wrote 10 1/2 years ago: Microsoft: "The whole world is our beta tester." That comment was way too positive, I realize now. Part of that comment seems correct to me:
    "Another problem at Microsoft is apparently that the good people have left, and the people who remain are not knowledgeable enough to do the work."

    It's time to stop joking about the many, many problems at Microsoft. (Regarding the parent comment: Cocaine will not fix the problems.)

    Microsoft needs a new CEO and a re-organization of management.

    See my comment posted yesterday: Microsoft is poorly managed? Plenty of evidence.

    1. Re: Microsoft was badly managed 10 years ago. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This problem isn't exclusive to Microsoft. Most software shops heavily weight their effort toward feature development, and Google goes as far as to base its promotions on "Impact"...where impact = big new shiny features.

      Any software shop can increase revenues by reducing testing, and there's little the existing customers can do about it. I have a. Sonos audio system here that struggles to play music and frequently skips tracks or stops playing abruptly. That's a "You had one job" bug...the one thing it was deliberately designed to do, it fails to do. You can't return the equipment because there was no defect at the time it shipped and it's long out of warranty. Meanwhile the printer manufacturers are rolling out validations on ink cartridges to artificially up the cost of printing. They hide this in "necessary software updates".

      Software security has done more to damage the tech industry than anything else. Most updates are security updates and it's a catchall to force you to update. Each update comes with new legal preamble that you're forced to accept, unless you want your phone (and only lifeline) bricked and unusable.

      A true Faustian bargain.

    2. Re: Microsoft was badly managed 10 years ago. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Other notable 'you just had one job' bugs..

      - Wake up alarm on android going off, but making no noise. Audio is fine, volume settings fine (not mute), and it works fine the next time with no changes. If your alarm app cannot reliably signal, it's worse than useless. Had this same issue on several phones.
      - Visual studio build dependency engine for c++ (.tlog files). Cancel a build in progress, now your dependencies are screwed, can change a file and it might not pick up/compile the change when you go to run. FFS! So many red herring bugs caused by this. It's not that hard, was working fine in older visual studio versions. Truly awful QA for a professional product.

    3. Re: Microsoft was badly managed 10 years ago. by kammermusik · · Score: 1

      Don't get me started on VS bugs. The least I can expect from a "professional" IDE is a build to run deterministically, i.e. either fail every time or succeed every time. What's unacceptable is the fact that I sometimes have to invoke "Build Solution" four(!) times for a build to finally succeed. Solution my ...

      Never have I experienced such annoyances with gmake.

  47. Decafes old File Explorer long file paths bug by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    MS File Explorer has been unable to handle long file paths of its own creation FOR DECADES.
    So yes, MS probably DO need to work on fixing existing bugs before creating new ones.
    But that has been true since THE LAST $£&ÂâÂ¥ CENTURY !

  48. The Result of Laying Off Your QA Team? by Khomar · · Score: 1

    A couple years ago, Microsoft made a big deal of laying off their QA team as they were to be replaced by automated testing. Now, I am a big fan of automated testing, but not as a replacement for qualified QA professionals. User acceptance testing and thinking outside the box are very difficult if not impossible to accomplish with only automated tests.

    Windows 10 is not the only piece of software that Microsoft has been releasing of late with questionable quality. Microsoft Teams is a joke with massive UI design flaws that cause tremendous headaches for their users. Visual Studio 2017 has been riddled with bugs with their numerous releases, including one that made it impossible to view the result of your automated unit tests (the irony is thick here). They only just released the fix for that bug after introducing the problem two months ago, and with each patch, it seems new bugs are cropping up. Is anyone actually testing these releases? Yes. The customers are, which is a really poor way to ensure you have a quality product.

    Microsoft needs to rethink their entire testing strategy, because their current approach simply is not working. What is even worse is that many people are lapping up the Microsoft dogma of software design while remaining ignorant of the actual results. I fear that a large sector of the software development scene is being polluted by their misguided ideas (much like the modern UI design elements, but I digress....)

    --

    I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!

    1. Re:The Result of Laying Off Your QA Team? by raftpeople · · Score: 1

      I've read through research regarding different types of testing and the ability to spot bugs. In general, the more complete/end to end/integrated the test was, the more likely to find bugs. Unit testing, which is typically very isolated, was around the 30% mark while visual code inspection (surprisingly) and end to end testing were up around 70%.

      Without reviewing this type of research, it's easy to assume that unit testing could be good enough or close to good enough, in reality it's one of the least valuable/effective methods of identifying bugs, so over-reliance on it will result in lower quality code.

    2. Re: The Result of Laying Off Your QA Team? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not surprising when the usual response to a failing test is to change the test so the failure stops instead of fixing the code.

      On the other hand, when the test fails because the requirements have changed, then the only reasonable thing to do is scrap the tests or rewrite them... and the latter always risks introducing bugs into the tests.

    3. Re:The Result of Laying Off Your QA Team? by mea2214 · · Score: 2

      Now, I am a big fan of automated testing, but not as a replacement for qualified QA professionals.

      You need QA professionals to write automated tests.

  49. MS greed and incompetence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When 10 was initially released, MS fired a slew of QA people. Sure, they sucked ass(MS only attracts the worst of the worst) but poor testing is better than none.

    numbnuts

  50. When was the last time they did something good? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Like, going through the archive of microsofts activities in the news, they are either subtley trying to move in and poison open source programs, touting terrible ideas as though they are genius, or screwing up on a technical level that makes you wonder who the hell they are hiring to program and what kind of spaghetti architecture they are truly dealing with when it comes to the OS.

    I genuinely cannot remember the last time microsoft did ANYTHING right. It is just a litany of illegal computer fraud and abuse via their update and telemetry systems, advertisement scumware, breaking standards, spying, terrible design choices, and poor business deals.

    I give the company another 5 years as being truly relevant, if it even still is on anything but paper. The year of linux came and went and now it's starting to get more like a 33/33/33 % split between mac win and linux. While the stats show people using win, they aren't entirely true as a huge chunk of people using win are now setting up linux vm's to actually get anything done which is the first step before a full migration. It also shows people as having win how bought the systems with the OS pre-loaded, but seems to turn a blind eye to how many people format the machines and throw linux on there very soon after purchase if not immediately.

    I feel like a sock puppet on a stick with googly eyes glued on could lead microsoft better than it's current executives. They are going to tank that stock so hard soon that it's going to be like a meteorite smashing into the earth as it grounds out and becomes worthless.

  51. Others by darkain · · Score: 1

    Apple shipped hardware if you hold it wrong, the cell radio doesn't function.

    Google shipped a web browser with a broken DNS resolver that would wait 60 seconds to timeout before resolving a DNS entry (imaging browsing the web at only 1 page per minute).

    These are just some quick examples off the top of my head, but the list is extremely long. But Microsoft is getting a scalable unfair reputation in comparison to the other companies for fucking up just as bad.

    Hell, I'm on a Google Pixel phone right now. The home screen can be swiped between multiple pages. 100% consistently, if I lock my phone on one particular page, when the phone unlocks, my entire home launcher disappears. I have to swipe over to a different arbitrary page, lock the phone again, and then re-unlock it just to get my launcher back.

    Microsoft releases updates to a small amount of people first, not everyone. If issues are detected, they halt updates, fix them, and then reissue the updates once again. Google? Apple? Others? They just tell you to fuck off and deal with it. This launcher bug has persisted for at least two months now. I don't even know how long the DNS resolver bug in Chrome existed, it forced me to use a different browser and I've never gone back. For a company I consult for, they had an issue where Chrome broke the ability to print documents for several months with literally hundreds of complaints on their forums. Who still prints this day in age? Anyone who uses a web based point of sales system (virtually everyone that does POS) and needing to print customer receipts.

    Okay, fine, what about open source software? Surely that is better tested, right? ... Remember that time one of the main devs of Linux left debug code enabled in the kernel and it actually shipped? Yeah, Linus went fucking NUTS. But that just goes to show that no matter what project or who is in charge or however much testing/review you have, shit happens.

    1. Re:Others by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure, shit happens occasionally, except for Microsoft.

      When they do something that is not incompetent or flat-out evil that is news. Every update is a smorgasbord of fuckups a CS freshman wouldn't likely do.

      Stop sucking off Nadella's microdick. It is bad for your health.

      numbnuts

    2. Re:Others by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Apple shipped hardware if you hold it wrong, the cell radio doesn't function.

      Seriously, you just defended Windows fuckups.

      What the fuck kind of asshole defends Windows deleting files, rendering computers inoperative, and renaming drivers so that they fail with stupid fucking Apple's antenna problem?

      Are you stupid, being [paid by Microsoft to make retarded comments, or what?

      Whataboutism of your level is only effective with peopel weho are as stupid as you.

      We need a -5 troll mod.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  52. Oh my by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 2

    "Either tests do not exist at all for this code (and I've been told that yes, it's permitted to integrate code without tests, though I would hope this isn't the norm)"

    Oh my, so so so so much to unpack in that one sentence.

    The fact that this bug got shipped should tell you a lot, and none of it's good.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    1. Re:Oh my by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      "Either tests do not exist at all for this code (and I've been told that yes, it's permitted to integrate code without tests, though I would hope this isn't the norm)"

      Oh my, so so so so much to unpack in that one sentence.

      The fact that this bug got shipped should tell you a lot, and none of it's good.

      Remember though, there are bigger problems according to darting - iPhone antennas.

      You can always move your hand, perhaps The almighty asses from Redmond can wave their hands, and all will be well again.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  53. Re:Guess I'm sticking with Win8.1 and classic shel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Classic shell makes 8.1 a decent OS.

    What the fuck are you smoking? Classic Shit is fuck'n awful. It's like the piece of shit FVWM95 all over again. Some motherfucker installed classic shit on our servers and it somehow manages to be worse than the vanilla experience.

  54. Re: When was the last time they did something good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Only reason Iâ(TM)m on Windows is because OSX has too little horsepower to efficiently make games in Unity at the scale I need, and Unity on Linux is a joke.

  55. Re: Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My MacBook Pro fan spins nonstop using Firefox while watching twitch.

  56. 2018. File Browser Doesnt Work. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But NSA viewmaster work perfectly!

    1. Re: 2018. File Browser Doesnt Work. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, NSA paid Microsoft more than we did.

  57. Subject is Subject by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But the experience with Windows 10 thus far is that Microsoft hasn't developed the processes and systems needed to sustain this new approach.

    "Welcome to Agile development" was the motto for Windows 10 --it's been 3 years of this farce and nothing's going to change now of all times. The evidence is this intentionally customer-hostile bugginess seems sustainable... and Agile and friends are here to stay

    It does not prioritize stability and while I'd hope it can be proven unsustainable by the industry or laws pushing back, the internet is here as a sidekick and will not allows it. It's enabled the utopia of shipping known-buggy code with little negative impact on the producer since the late-nineties. This past decade or two exhacerbated the situation with the adoption of forced updates (not optional as in the likes Flash or Java but with cutoff threats such as MSN messenger, Skype... then silent, unblockable updates or constant nagging darkpatterns such as iOS) and "patch early, patch often." It's given us the world of legacy-feature-breaking, novelty-pushing browsers and desktop OS's, and sealed appliance mobile OSs.

    Windows is becoming a sealed appliance as well thanks to the App store. In 10 years or less we can expect nothing to be installable locally without uncomfortable workarounds, if the world of Windows 10 S is to be seen as a herald of things to come. I recall a pilot program announced here around decade ago where Microsoft was testing a subcription model for the Office suite or its OS --I can't recall which. That was forgotten but we eventually got the Office 365 threadmill out of it. Your desktop is next, once accretion pumps up the Windows 10 adoption numbers high enough.

  58. Re: Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are people who never brush yet have perfect teeth. Others brush twice a day, floss, etc... And all their teeth fall out. There's a lot modern dentistry doesn't understand.

  59. Re:Then who will write the apps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not retail ofc. You'll be renting your sw, weekly.

  60. Re: Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.intoyourhandsllc.com/blog/67-cure-tooth-decay-book-review.html

  61. Re: FOSS vs Junkware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ah yes, Portland: the last bastion of anti-socialists...

    numbnuts

  62. Why isn't that the default? At end instead of star by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why isn't that the default? At end instead of start?

  63. Avoids mistakes, for one by raymorris · · Score: 1

    With the super block at the begining, you can't accidentally mount one component device rather than the array, therefore throwing the array out of sync. It's normally a mistake to do that, so it's good to make it not easy to do by accident. If you want to mount a filesystem that starts at an offset into the device, you have to do that *on purpose*. That's one reason it's not the default for mdadm.

    For installation scripts, it's a good idea to do that on /boot only by default.

  64. QA went to hell due to layoffs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    MS basically laid off the entire Seattle Windows Update QA team around the beginning of windows 10, and moved all QA ops to the Shanghai dev center. The old greybeards with god knows how many man years worth of experience were getting too costly, so MS in their infinite wisdom, tossed them all and outsourced to the cheap chinese at the new center. This has lead to a rolling trainwreck of updates both minor and major, and letting critical bugs roll out into the wild.

    MS is betting (correctly) that in this age of automatic updates and people getting scared about cybersecurity keeping auto updates on, if they mess up, they can roll out another patch. As long as it doesn't lead to BSoD's and the network driver doesn't die, it's a workable plan at the expense of the consumer. Thus their costs have gone wayyyyy down. Windows Insider program is effectively outsourcing more of the debug hardware lab to the outside world, and making early adopters suffer alpha grade "feature" testing under the cover of open public beta.

  65. Re: Windows 10 is a big step towards locked down.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There will either be new OEMs who make money by not bundling Microsoft or there will be an antitrust lawsuit. The thing you need to worry about is when the GOVERNMENT decides to restrict what's available, because then it's comply or GTFO.