If Microsoft doesn't make it clear to users that this option is what most users will want, Microsoft will see plenty of bad press over this feature.
use a program that supports auto saves
If Windows is moving toward recommending autosave, then why doesn't Windows Notepad, an application included with Windows, support it?
What would you do in the event of a power outage
Close the lid, which puts the computer to sleep. My laptop can go for days in suspend until either power is restored or I get the laptop to a public place with a power outlet.
You should have programs that autosave regularly. [...] Microsoft should have saved your notepad data when they forced the shutdown.
Exactly. Microsoft puts in automatic restarts without considering its effects on other applications that it ships with its own operating system.
OSX incidentally which you are often critical of, has had this as the default for years now in their developer kit so that almost all OSX applications effective autosave.
Does autosave in OS X save my accidental large deletions and make it impossible for me to revert them? Years ago, I lost a bunch of work to autosave on a Newton device, which ran another Apple operating system oriented toward autosave. I accidentally deleted a bunch of text and then typed one more word. The "undo" would undo typing the word, and then "undo" after that would undo the undo, that is, redo. The large amount of text was just lost for good. See my other comment about autosave.
Android devices also tend to have tiny monitors. And if they have Google Play, they also have a window manager that forces every app to run maximized. They tend not to have even the "Snap an App" feature that is a standard feature for Universal Windows Platform apps in Windows 8 and Windows RT.
A variety of embedded and server OSes are thriving.
The article is about home edition, not Windows Server or Windows Embedded.
Virtualization has made Linux easier than ever to try
Until a Windows security update breaks your VM app. "DOS ain't done till..."
By "Windows emulation", do you mean actually buying a copy of Windows and running it in a VM, or do you mean Wine (which Is Not an Emulator, hence the name)? The considerations differ for the two.
Exactly which part of the hardware is the operating system?
In this analogy, the part containing the subroutine that verifies that the actual operating system has been signed by an accredited publisher. So the flash chip containing the UEFI firmware.
1) If you know enough about patches to delay them, and manually manage them you should probably be using Windows Pro anyways.
"Windows restarted after an update, which caused Windows Notepad, a Microsoft application mind you, to lose the notes to myself that I was keeping." Is that enough to justify paying extra for Pro on every machine?
About a decade and a half ago, Microsoft was convicted in a US antitrust court abusing its monopoly. But after a change in the ruling party, the Department of Justice gave Microsoft what amounts to a slap on the wrist.
If you don't know enough to upgrade to Professional, perhaps you really ought to be getting your updates in a timely fashion.
Windows Pro is an extra cost add-on, and not all actual professionals (people who get paid to do things) understand how Windows Pro could benefit them. What features of Windows Pro are most important, other than the ability to delay updates?
It is trivial to block the appropriate sites/addresses on your router.
So long as the gateway appliance that you own either A. includes this feature or B. is powerful enough (CPU, RAM, storage) and open enough (no code signing that the user cannot override) to run a third-party firmware that includes this feature. Also, so long as the update service doesn't continuously vary the hostname of the update server, such as changing the digits in "upd9318.update.example.com". I imagine that a built-in blocking feature on an entry-level home gateway appliance is less likely to include wildcards.
2. Does it allow a local user to gain admin rights? No problem my single local user is an admin
Rephrased: Does it allow a local user to gain admin rights without reentering the password for elevation or at least clicking through a highly visible dialog box? If so, lurking malware could elevate and infect system files that way. I imagine that vulnerabilities in the login service would be highly likely to allow this.
SSL support - wouldn't that only need restarting the programs that use SSL - browsers, email etc leaving my notepad, MS Word etc open?
That depends on to what extent Microsoft Word interacts with online backup and version control stuff like OneDrive.
I updated OpensSSL and only restarted the services that use SSL - apache, exim etc.
Are there any graphical applications that include OpenSSL? Graphical applications usually can't just be automatically restarted without potentially causing the user to lose unsaved changes. Or do graphical applications use NSS or GNU TLS instead?
If they lock you out of the registry too, then one has to wonder why you'd even have this version of Windows in the first place. If you can't have 100% control over the hardware you own then what's the point of even having it?
I guess because bad Windows that runs your important applications is better than no Windows that does not run your important applications. Over time, hardware that ships with an older version of Windows will become hard to come by. And eventually, extended support for Windows 7 will end, leaving users with no way to run Internet-connected Windows-only applications that don't work in Wine.
For the vast majority of Windows Home users who use their computers for web/email/Word, I think it's great to keep them up-to-date, mandatory.
That'd be fine if all applications could restart without data loss, mandatory. Many applications will lose changes to the active documents since the user last committed changes. The button to manually commit changes to a new document for the first time usually requires coming up with a name for the document and putting it in some folder. Because most applications are unable to come up with a title and location automatically, Windows instead automatically clicks the "Discard Changes" button when restarting. And in most applications, the committed data does not contain the entire undo history. Several times in the past, on devices without a concept of revision control, I have lost data by making an accidental harmful change and letting the application auto-save over the good copy.
Try this: Type a comment into Slashdot but don't submit it. Then restart your computer and reopen your browser. Does your browser's "Restore Session" feature restore the text of the comment?
Kernel updates on Windows also require a reboot. It's just that Patch Tuesday usually includes at least one kernel update.
normally you just restart the affected service(s)
If you have to restart the "graphics drivers" service or the "login" service or the "SSL support" service, wouldn't you need to log out all user sessions for that? That'd be just as interrupting as a restart, which is why Ubuntu has often requested restarts for important updates to OpenSSL.
Since Windows 8, Windows Defender has treated changes to %windir%\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts as possible infections, because they often are, unless the administrator adds the file to a list of files that Windows Defender will not monitor. And I imagine that DNSSEC validating resolvers will skip the hosts file because entries aren't signed.
Not if alternatives to Microsoft software are impractical to procure. As of Windows 10 launch, Microsoft is allowing PC makers to lock users into Secure Boot. With this in place, and with trialware allegedly more than subsidizing the cost of a Windows license, I don't see laptop makers other than System76 and Apple caring about anything but Windows.
The employer ultimately pays for everything the employee consumes. It's ultimately a question of how much the employer pays, and this includes whether certain consumptions by employees can be made more efficient.
Windows can obtain and renew a Universal Windows Platform developer license without charge. Open an elevated PowerShell, type Show-WindowsDeveloperLicenseRegistration, and press Enter.
Since Android 4.1, paid apps have been encrypted with a key per device. The intent, as I understand it, is that if you restore an encrypted paid app from one device to another device, you can't use it. Or what am I missing?
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or most likely- were on their cell phone- perhaps even texting or reading a text for bonus points.
Then Google is responsible unless it was an iPhone.
that is an application problem and it should be addressed by the application vendors.
I'll believe that when Microsoft addresses the problem in its own applications.
Do select the auto update, manual reboot option.
If Microsoft doesn't make it clear to users that this option is what most users will want, Microsoft will see plenty of bad press over this feature.
use a program that supports auto saves
If Windows is moving toward recommending autosave, then why doesn't Windows Notepad, an application included with Windows, support it?
What would you do in the event of a power outage
Close the lid, which puts the computer to sleep. My laptop can go for days in suspend until either power is restored or I get the laptop to a public place with a power outlet.
You should have programs that autosave regularly. [...] Microsoft should have saved your notepad data when they forced the shutdown.
Exactly. Microsoft puts in automatic restarts without considering its effects on other applications that it ships with its own operating system.
OSX incidentally which you are often critical of, has had this as the default for years now in their developer kit so that almost all OSX applications effective autosave.
Does autosave in OS X save my accidental large deletions and make it impossible for me to revert them? Years ago, I lost a bunch of work to autosave on a Newton device, which ran another Apple operating system oriented toward autosave. I accidentally deleted a bunch of text and then typed one more word. The "undo" would undo typing the word, and then "undo" after that would undo the undo, that is, redo. The large amount of text was just lost for good. See my other comment about autosave.
Android is thriving.
Android devices also tend to have tiny monitors. And if they have Google Play, they also have a window manager that forces every app to run maximized. They tend not to have even the "Snap an App" feature that is a standard feature for Universal Windows Platform apps in Windows 8 and Windows RT.
A variety of embedded and server OSes are thriving.
The article is about home edition, not Windows Server or Windows Embedded.
Virtualization has made Linux easier than ever to try
Until a Windows security update breaks your VM app. "DOS ain't done till..."
So I guess that leaves Mac.
By "Windows emulation", do you mean actually buying a copy of Windows and running it in a VM, or do you mean Wine (which Is Not an Emulator, hence the name)? The considerations differ for the two.
Exactly which part of the hardware is the operating system?
In this analogy, the part containing the subroutine that verifies that the actual operating system has been signed by an accredited publisher. So the flash chip containing the UEFI firmware.
1) If you know enough about patches to delay them, and manually manage them you should probably be using Windows Pro anyways.
"Windows restarted after an update, which caused Windows Notepad, a Microsoft application mind you, to lose the notes to myself that I was keeping." Is that enough to justify paying extra for Pro on every machine?
About a decade and a half ago, Microsoft was convicted in a US antitrust court abusing its monopoly. But after a change in the ruling party, the Department of Justice gave Microsoft what amounts to a slap on the wrist.
If you don't know enough to upgrade to Professional, perhaps you really ought to be getting your updates in a timely fashion.
Windows Pro is an extra cost add-on, and not all actual professionals (people who get paid to do things) understand how Windows Pro could benefit them. What features of Windows Pro are most important, other than the ability to delay updates?
It is trivial to block the appropriate sites/addresses on your router.
So long as the gateway appliance that you own either A. includes this feature or B. is powerful enough (CPU, RAM, storage) and open enough (no code signing that the user cannot override) to run a third-party firmware that includes this feature. Also, so long as the update service doesn't continuously vary the hostname of the update server, such as changing the digits in "upd9318.update.example.com". I imagine that a built-in blocking feature on an entry-level home gateway appliance is less likely to include wildcards.
2. Does it allow a local user to gain admin rights? No problem my single local user is an admin
Rephrased: Does it allow a local user to gain admin rights without reentering the password for elevation or at least clicking through a highly visible dialog box? If so, lurking malware could elevate and infect system files that way. I imagine that vulnerabilities in the login service would be highly likely to allow this.
SSL support - wouldn't that only need restarting the programs that use SSL - browsers, email etc leaving my notepad, MS Word etc open?
That depends on to what extent Microsoft Word interacts with online backup and version control stuff like OneDrive.
I updated OpensSSL and only restarted the services that use SSL - apache, exim etc.
Are there any graphical applications that include OpenSSL? Graphical applications usually can't just be automatically restarted without potentially causing the user to lose unsaved changes. Or do graphical applications use NSS or GNU TLS instead?
If they lock you out of the registry too, then one has to wonder why you'd even have this version of Windows in the first place. If you can't have 100% control over the hardware you own then what's the point of even having it?
I guess because bad Windows that runs your important applications is better than no Windows that does not run your important applications. Over time, hardware that ships with an older version of Windows will become hard to come by. And eventually, extended support for Windows 7 will end, leaving users with no way to run Internet-connected Windows-only applications that don't work in Wine.
For the vast majority of Windows Home users who use their computers for web/email/Word, I think it's great to keep them up-to-date, mandatory.
That'd be fine if all applications could restart without data loss, mandatory. Many applications will lose changes to the active documents since the user last committed changes. The button to manually commit changes to a new document for the first time usually requires coming up with a name for the document and putting it in some folder. Because most applications are unable to come up with a title and location automatically, Windows instead automatically clicks the "Discard Changes" button when restarting. And in most applications, the committed data does not contain the entire undo history. Several times in the past, on devices without a concept of revision control, I have lost data by making an accidental harmful change and letting the application auto-save over the good copy.
Try this: Type a comment into Slashdot but don't submit it. Then restart your computer and reopen your browser. Does your browser's "Restore Session" feature restore the text of the comment?
Linux, where only kernel updates require a reboot
Kernel updates on Windows also require a reboot. It's just that Patch Tuesday usually includes at least one kernel update.
normally you just restart the affected service(s)
If you have to restart the "graphics drivers" service or the "login" service or the "SSL support" service, wouldn't you need to log out all user sessions for that? That'd be just as interrupting as a restart, which is why Ubuntu has often requested restarts for important updates to OpenSSL.
Since Windows 8, Windows Defender has treated changes to %windir%\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts as possible infections, because they often are, unless the administrator adds the file to a list of files that Windows Defender will not monitor. And I imagine that DNSSEC validating resolvers will skip the hosts file because entries aren't signed.
Not if alternatives to Microsoft software are impractical to procure. As of Windows 10 launch, Microsoft is allowing PC makers to lock users into Secure Boot. With this in place, and with trialware allegedly more than subsidizing the cost of a Windows license, I don't see laptop makers other than System76 and Apple caring about anything but Windows.
It still raises the question of why cartoon characters are drawn hydrocephalic, such as Dora Marquez from Dora the Explorer , Arnold Shortman from Hey Arnold , and so many more.
Han Han reached a point where she had a difficult time lifting her head which weighed more than half of her entire body weight
Which raises the question: How does Charlie Brown hold his head up?
I think I would have taken amputation.
Case in point: You don't need legs to skate or surf or do gymnastics or swing like Spider-Man.
The employer ultimately pays for everything the employee consumes. It's ultimately a question of how much the employer pays, and this includes whether certain consumptions by employees can be made more efficient.
They'd be big-N Nazis if they were associated with a National Socialist political organization. It's like the difference between libertarianism and Libertarian parties.
Windows can obtain and renew a Universal Windows Platform developer license without charge. Open an elevated PowerShell, type Show-WindowsDeveloperLicenseRegistration, and press Enter.
Since Android 4.1, paid apps have been encrypted with a key per device. The intent, as I understand it, is that if you restore an encrypted paid app from one device to another device, you can't use it. Or what am I missing?