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On a related note: with Linux as my daily driver, I don't understand how the average Windows user deals with Microsoft's implementation of automatic updates. S

On a related note: with Linux as my daily driver, I don't understand how the average Windows user deals with Microsoft's implementation of automatic updates. Say I just woke up, and I'm in a rush to boot up my computer, print out a paper, and get out the door. But--surprise! Windows Update ran in the background the night before, and now system startup is delayed half an hour or more to configure a new batch of patches. On the one hand, from a security standpoint, I appreciate that the default is to keep users' systems up-to-date. On the other, it seems that Microsoft pushes this with little regard for their users' time or comfort.

Nadya 11y ago
Unless you get up for work on Wednesday (Tuesday?) night at 3am you're fine. >now system startup is delayed half an hour or more to configure a new batch of patches. The default is that there is no configuration. The OS downloads the patches by default, installs them, then waits for the user to restart the computer to finalize things. The user can simply not restart the computer if they are in a hurry.
- mintplant 11y ago
  I'm talking about a cold boot here. As in: (1) the OS downloads and installs patches (2) at some point I turn off my computer for the night (3) I turn it on again in the morning and have to wait for this finalization before I can use my system.
  - Nadya 11y ago
    This can occasionally be an issue for people unaware of the update schedule - I agree. A small learning curve of "reset before turning off for the night on Tuesdays" alleviates that problem and I feel Microsoft made that trade off for user security with their general user (read: non-tech savvy people) as the primary users. Personally I have automatic updates turned off and vet which patches get installed. But I'm more involved than the typical Windows users. I'd use a Linux distro if I could find suitable replacements for certain programs I rely on for my workflow.
    - simoncion 11y ago
      > This can occasionally be an issue for people unaware of the update schedule - I agree. > A small learning curve of "reset before turning off for the night on Tuesdays" alleviates that problem... No. The problem remains. This just time-shifts the problem. In recent memory, I've had two Patch Tuesdays that sent Windows into a 5+ deep post-boot-but-pre-login reboot loop while Windows tried to figure out how to apply several patches that would just not apply. (Spoiler alert: It never figured out how, but just -eventually- gave up.) It doesn't matter what technical decisions and constraints lead to this post-boot-but-pre-login configuration process being the way things work, it's still awful. Every Linux distro I use seems to have figured out how to apply and configure updates before you reboot a system, rather than during the next boot cycle.
      - Nadya 11y ago
        >No. The problem remains. This just time-shifts the problem. The time was the problem in the example, so time-shifting is a legitimate fix to the problem here. "In a rush for work, turn on computer, 30 minutes of updates." was the problem. >Every Linux distro I use seems to have figured out how to apply and configure updates before you reboot a system, rather than during the next boot cycle. There are tradeoffs for doing things that way. Such as when everything eats shit and you regret updating. For example: pacman -Syu Can be a complete nightmare.
        tdkl 11y ago
        > There are tradeoffs for doing things that way. Such as when everything eats shit and you regret updating. For example: pacman -Syu Knowing that you're on a rolling release distro is one thing, but being used to a "LTS" system (Windows 7,8x) then "upgrading" to a rolling release (Windows 10) is something else. The trust in MS for being capable and responsible for handling the updates is broken.
        simoncion 11y ago
        > There are tradeoffs for doing things that way. Such as when everything eats shit and you regret updating. Bad updates are bad updates, regardless of whether you do the configuration after a reboot (rendering the computer useless while you configure), or while the system is still running. Not that it matters, but I've had far more bad updates on my Windows systems than I have on any of my Linux systems. :) > ...time-shifting is a legitimate fix to the problem here. It's not a fix. It's a band-aid that fails to address the root of the problem.
gizmo686 11y ago
You can have automatic updates without the Windows style problem you describe. The bigger problem is that Windows updates require taking the system offline for a significant amount of time; as apposed to configuring the updates while the unupdated system is running, then applying them with nothing more than a normal reboot.
corysama 11y ago
> I appreciate that the default is to keep users' systems up-to-date. By catering to both the masses and the experts, MS is caught between a rock and a hard place. Forced, automatic updates are extremely irritating. But, without them, the vast majority of Windows users would never update anything. Never. Windows would have a much worse reputation for security because tens of millions of users would be getting regularly owned by hacks that were patched 8 years ago.
- mark-r 11y ago
  Something in between is possible. If you were to get annoying popups that you had to dismiss daily until you updated your system, most people would just click OK and deal with it. Unless they were in a hurry, as suggested by the parent.
  - acdha 11y ago
    That's what they tried for the previous decade. The only thing which happened was training users to either click cancel without reading or figure out how to disable updates.
    - mark-r 11y ago
      Well with this announcement, they just trained me to disable updates - so I guess that's backfiring on them.
- makecheck 11y ago
  The thing is, Microsoft's updates shouldn't be these all-encompassing, UI-destroying messes. They should be sensible, useful, smaller updates. If there is any component that stands in the way of small, easy updates, a better-designed component should be created and made available as a free, opt-in update (e.g. state that the older version is unsupported and that all major updates will only occur in the new-better-designed-incrementally-updated design).
  - epmatsw 11y ago
wvenable 11y ago
You set updates to download automatically but not install. It's one of the options. Then you get alerted of updates and can install them when convenient. You get a small notification on the login screen.
- Elhana 11y ago
  You set updates to check only. Otherwise you launch your several windows VMs one day and they all start downloading windows 10, yay!
makecheck 11y ago
Exactly. Startup or wake-up is the worst possible time to start a bunch of new processes because it is the one time that the user has explicitly told you that they want to start using their device immediately. Virtually any other time -- even a RANDOMLY chosen time -- would be less likely to be in the user's way! Microsoft is far from the only offender of course (a PlayStation comes to mind, for example) but system designers really need to start using their brains on this.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- niyazpk 11y ago
  Firefox used to run its updates during startup too (not sure if it does still), and this is one of the reasons why I switched. When I am in a rush to check something online, I don't want to waste 5 minutes updating anything.
yuhong 11y ago
I think this is a side effect of the use of CBS since Vista. Back in the update.exe days, there was no database to maintain and most of the work was done in update.exe including adding a list of files to change on reboot into the registry, as well as adding registry entries for the updates installed. It was a fairly simple system. CBS now uses a database to keep track of updates that needs to be updated on reboot and is much more complex. Win10 actually improves the situation BTW by using single cumulative updates instead of multiple updates for each patch Tuesday.

Nadya 11y ago

Unless you get up for work on Wednesday (Tuesday?) night at 3am you're fine. >now system startup is delayed half an hour or more to configure a new batch of patches. The default is that there is no configuration. The OS downloads the patches by default, installs them, then waits for the user to restart the computer to finalize things. The user can simply not restart the computer if they are in a hurry.

mintplant 11y ago
I'm talking about a cold boot here. As in: (1) the OS downloads and installs patches (2) at some point I turn off my computer for the night (3) I turn it on again in the morning and have to wait for this finalization before I can use my system.
- Nadya 11y ago
  This can occasionally be an issue for people unaware of the update schedule - I agree. A small learning curve of "reset before turning off for the night on Tuesdays" alleviates that problem and I feel Microsoft made that trade off for user security with their general user (read: non-tech savvy people) as the primary users. Personally I have automatic updates turned off and vet which patches get installed. But I'm more involved than the typical Windows users. I'd use a Linux distro if I could find suitable replacements for certain programs I rely on for my workflow.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    > This can occasionally be an issue for people unaware of the update schedule - I agree. > A small learning curve of "reset before turning off for the night on Tuesdays" alleviates that problem... No. The problem remains. This just time-shifts the problem. In recent memory, I've had two Patch Tuesdays that sent Windows into a 5+ deep post-boot-but-pre-login reboot loop while Windows tried to figure out how to apply several patches that would just not apply. (Spoiler alert: It never figured out how, but just -eventually- gave up.) It doesn't matter what technical decisions and constraints lead to this post-boot-but-pre-login configuration process being the way things work, it's still awful. Every Linux distro I use seems to have figured out how to apply and configure updates before you reboot a system, rather than during the next boot cycle.
    - Nadya 11y ago
      >No. The problem remains. This just time-shifts the problem. The time was the problem in the example, so time-shifting is a legitimate fix to the problem here. "In a rush for work, turn on computer, 30 minutes of updates." was the problem. >Every Linux distro I use seems to have figured out how to apply and configure updates before you reboot a system, rather than during the next boot cycle. There are tradeoffs for doing things that way. Such as when everything eats shit and you regret updating. For example: pacman -Syu Can be a complete nightmare.
      - tdkl 11y ago
        > There are tradeoffs for doing things that way. Such as when everything eats shit and you regret updating. For example: pacman -Syu Knowing that you're on a rolling release distro is one thing, but being used to a "LTS" system (Windows 7,8x) then "upgrading" to a rolling release (Windows 10) is something else. The trust in MS for being capable and responsible for handling the updates is broken.
      - simoncion 11y ago
        > There are tradeoffs for doing things that way. Such as when everything eats shit and you regret updating. Bad updates are bad updates, regardless of whether you do the configuration after a reboot (rendering the computer useless while you configure), or while the system is still running. Not that it matters, but I've had far more bad updates on my Windows systems than I have on any of my Linux systems. :) > ...time-shifting is a legitimate fix to the problem here. It's not a fix. It's a band-aid that fails to address the root of the problem.

gizmo686 11y ago

You can have automatic updates without the Windows style problem you describe. The bigger problem is that Windows updates require taking the system offline for a significant amount of time; as apposed to configuring the updates while the unupdated system is running, then applying them with nothing more than a normal reboot.

corysama 11y ago

> I appreciate that the default is to keep users' systems up-to-date. By catering to both the masses and the experts, MS is caught between a rock and a hard place. Forced, automatic updates are extremely irritating. But, without them, the vast majority of Windows users would never update anything. Never. Windows would have a much worse reputation for security because tens of millions of users would be getting regularly owned by hacks that were patched 8 years ago.

mark-r 11y ago
Something in between is possible. If you were to get annoying popups that you had to dismiss daily until you updated your system, most people would just click OK and deal with it. Unless they were in a hurry, as suggested by the parent.
- acdha 11y ago
  That's what they tried for the previous decade. The only thing which happened was training users to either click cancel without reading or figure out how to disable updates.
  - mark-r 11y ago
    Well with this announcement, they just trained me to disable updates - so I guess that's backfiring on them.
makecheck 11y ago
The thing is, Microsoft's updates shouldn't be these all-encompassing, UI-destroying messes. They should be sensible, useful, smaller updates. If there is any component that stands in the way of small, easy updates, a better-designed component should be created and made available as a free, opt-in update (e.g. state that the older version is unsupported and that all major updates will only occur in the new-better-designed-incrementally-updated design).
- epmatsw 11y ago

wvenable 11y ago

You set updates to download automatically but not install. It's one of the options. Then you get alerted of updates and can install them when convenient. You get a small notification on the login screen.

Elhana 11y ago
You set updates to check only. Otherwise you launch your several windows VMs one day and they all start downloading windows 10, yay!

makecheck 11y ago

Exactly. Startup or wake-up is the worst possible time to start a bunch of new processes because it is the one time that the user has explicitly told you that they want to start using their device immediately. Virtually any other time -- even a RANDOMLY chosen time -- would be less likely to be in the user's way! Microsoft is far from the only offender of course (a PlayStation comes to mind, for example) but system designers really need to start using their brains on this.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
niyazpk 11y ago
Firefox used to run its updates during startup too (not sure if it does still), and this is one of the reasons why I switched. When I am in a rush to check something online, I don't want to waste 5 minutes updating anything.

yuhong 11y ago

I think this is a side effect of the use of CBS since Vista. Back in the update.exe days, there was no database to maintain and most of the work was done in update.exe including adding a list of files to change on reboot into the registry, as well as adding registry entries for the updates installed. It was a fairly simple system. CBS now uses a database to keep track of updates that needs to be updated on reboot and is much more complex. Win10 actually improves the situation BTW by using single cumulative updates instead of multiple updates for each patch Tuesday.