13 ms·

Support it if you want, but you seriously think it's OK for the PC to restart in the middle of a call? What if the user is doing something mission critical; it'

Support it if you want, but you seriously think it's OK for the PC to restart in the middle of a call? What if the user is doing something mission critical; it's acceptable to just wait an hour (or more likely several) to get back to work because "MS knows best"?? There is nothing to stop it from just doing it all over again either. I will never use Windows again because of this behavior.

wvenable 10y ago
I just did the Windows 10 upgrade on my laptop and at no point could I start the upgrade without explicitly clicking a button. In addition, the process starts by immediately rebooting (after downloading via Windows update and asking you to start it).
- pdx 10y ago
  That's a really interesting story. Let me tell you another one. Both my wife's and my son's computers updated automatically, with no button presses on their parts, even after them pressing "do not update" on all the nag screens for the past several months.
  - wvenable 10y ago
    You at least have accept the license agreement, which is true of almost every piece of software. I've still got half my machines on Windows 7/8 and I haven't upgraded them yet. On this laptop I actually had it download Windows 10 but I wasn't ready to upgrade so I held it off for another week. I still had to press something to get it to start.
  - intopieces 10y ago
    On the pop-ups that appear on my Windows 7 machine, there is no button they says "Do Not Update"; both buttons (Update now, update later) lead the system to download and install Windows 10. That both of your users report explicitly clicking a button that references update makes me suspicious that they in fact just clicked the wrong button. Sneaky of Microsoft, but I'm having trouble buying these tales of the OS going rogue. I just haven't seen any way for that to happen.
    - vetinari 10y ago
      Even dismissing the windows is considered "yes, upgrade". That way beyond sneaky, that's just black pattern.
      - intopieces 10y ago
        But the upgrade still requires that the user accept the EULA. I agree that the system is hostile to user preference (any reports of a computer behaving in a way the user doesn't expect should be examined, whether the user "should know better" or not) but it's important to get to the bottom of exactly what happened, and sometimes that requires figuring it what the user actually did, not just what they report they did. Anyone who has worked in tech support has this instinct.
        vetinari 10y ago
        Yes, it is necessary to accept EULA. However, consider it also from the user's POV. The update will download gigabytes of data, will do everything possible to get anything from the user that can pass as "agreement" and then update the software. Then it will reboot machine and present the new EULA. If the user disagrees with the EULA, it will restore the original system - but not right now. It will take tens of minutes (not everyone has SSD) and during this time, the users is practically locked out of using the computer. If you are small entrepreneur, this is basically time when you cannot work and it's not your fault. Some of these folks cannot afford to wait a hour or so for the system to restore. And this will be not final - who guaranteed that the windows update will not try again in a few weeks, once Microsoft steps up the campaign again?
        amluto 10y ago
        I wonder if the EULA is enforceable at all, given the circumstances. "Accept or I'll break your computer for hours" seems like a contract accepted under duress.
  - Decade 10y ago
    I’ve never seen this. Partly it may be A/B testing and I was never in the B group, but I think people are closing dialog boxes without thinking enough about how they’re closing them, and accidentally agreeing to upgrade.
    - nitrogen 10y ago
      No matter the dialog box, closing it should always mean "do nothing and go back to where I was before", not "do your sneaky crap later when I'm asleep or busy". Anything else is a malignant antipattern.
      - freehunter 10y ago
        Don't Chrome and Firefox do this by default now? Automatically download an update in the background and install it without asking when you close the browser window?
        Vexs 10y ago
        There's a pretty sizable difference between chrome updates and updating from 7 to 10. The fundamentals of chrome remain the same, and for 99% of users they don't notice a difference. Granted, they've never really done a "chrome 2" style of upgrade, and I'm curious how they'll handle it.
        sametmax 10y ago
        Do not compare an a paid OS I run a business on which upgrade one entire version, force rebooting, freezing my machine and introducing incompatibilities and spywares with an free opensource browser that I can merely swap with any competitor at a click of a button in my start menu. I don't run my main source of income on Firefox or Android. I didn't pay a licence for a browser or a phone OS. I can't find a quick alternative as quickly for my dev laptop as I can for those. Hopefully I got a dual boot and make sure I don't boot Windows anymore, otherwise it would be really dangerous, as I could be giving a training and suddenly get my machine locked for some undesired upgrade in from of my customers.
Bartweiss 10y ago
My biggest aggravation with Windows is the pattern of unapproved restarts. Sure, there's usually a setting to disable it, and a popup to delay it, but it's not really enough. The setting appears unreliable at best, and the popup is useless when it pops under fullscreen programs. It really only takes one ill-timed restart to damn an OS forever, especially when the restart is chased by lengthy (and impossible to decline) downtime while a patch or upgrade is installed. Restarting on someone during a Skype interview or business call is shockingly unacceptable, no matter how sensible the average case.
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  The interesting thing here is that Windows 8, 8.1 and 10 all improved the Windows Update restart timing logic and made it more transparent. (There's a section that states "A restart is planned, Windows has determined the most likely idle time to try the restart is 3:43am" now, for instance.) In this case it's Windows 7's Restart logic that is old/bad (and long has been), not Windows 10, but Windows 10 of course is getting blamed for it, not Windows 7. It's another reason people should stop worrying and upgrade to Windows 10. ;)
  - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
    That's not an excuse. Microsoft can and has been pushing updates to 7 to enable the constant upgrade nagging. They've even been continually pushing new updates that get more and more naggy. There is nothing preventing them from including an update that makes 7's restart logic less sadistic, but they've chosen not to do that.
    - eropple 10y ago
      Can you explain to me why Microsoft should expend time and effort to encourage behavior (staying on Windows 7) that increases their costs and increases fragility in their ecosystem? I'm not sympathetic to the dark patterns they use to push people to upgrade, but I'm 100% onboard with not pushing improvements to an older operating system.
snerbles 10y ago
It was either not fully thought out, or Microsoft's analysis figured that it would cost less to do it this way. Anecdote: When I worked dispatch, the local Network Operations Center pushed out an update that forcibly rebooted all of our Windows workstations...including the machine that ran inbound emergency calls. The admins at the NOC didn't think that anyone would dial 911 at three in the morning. No malfeasance, but a simple lack of foresight.
- Fordrus 10y ago
  See, this is a GREAT comparison, because thinking, "No one will call 911 at 3am" EASILY falls into the realm of destructive negligence. Like "I didn't realize these cars could be hit from the side!" or, "I didn't realize how much worse I drive when I am drunk, officer!" In the 3am 911 case, those admins could EASILY have cost LIVES with their decision. If that inbound call handler's machine had updates waiting, or more especially had any difficulty installing those updates, you could've had HOURS of downtime in a scenario where MINUTES mean life or death! I guess my main point is that naivete like that is called criminal negligence and is punishable under the law in many cases. There may have been no malicious intent, but in a case so potentially catastrophic, it hardly matters, and if those admins didn't get into DEEP TROUBLE, they're either very lucky or your administrative discipline system is VERY broken. And Microsoft is straying into similar territory with this whole thing.
  - snerbles 10y ago
    > and if those admins didn't get into DEEP TROUBLE, they're either very lucky or your administrative discipline system is VERY broken Our commander talked to their commander, I'm sure at least one finger was wagged at them in disapproval.
    - tremon 10y ago
      and this is how incompetence lives on.
  - freehunter 10y ago
Spooky23 10y ago
Try being a fast-track user. I get that volunteering to beta-test comes with some pain, but I literally went to go use the bathroom mid-day, and I came back to Windows 10 reverting to an older build. Bizarre.
cordite 10y ago
Restarting and installing a new OS without intent during a call is definitely bad. Also, restarting to install updates while in the middle of a presentation at work was disrupting and humiliating. Happened to me.
WalterBright 10y ago
I've had various problems with running a long job, and then Windows popping up and saying it's going to restart shortly to install updates. Or I want to open my laptop to check something, and it demands the power plugged in so it can spend 10-20 minutes installing updates. I've worried about it doing this nonsense when I'm using it to do a presentation or something.
- tracker1 10y ago
  IIRC, you can specify a time of day to update, and mostly, you get an option to retry in 4 hours (or tomorrow, etc)... most corporate environments are using services to defer updates to scheduled times.. and at home, I just leave it on/auto. My understanding it's only after a few days of nagging that you can't defer the updates anymore. If you can't reboot your computer for over two days, you may want to rethink your workflow... I tend to completely shutdown/restart at least every night/morning, and if I had critical pending updates, would probably let them run at lunch, just closing everything before that. This happens maybe once a month, and is just the cost of having a computer... "Oh man, I have to stop my car and turn it off to get gas once a week. Or when I get my oil changed every few months..."
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    Ubuntu does it right. It only nags me when I log in, and I can dismiss it with a click, and I don't get nagged again until I log in again. Edit: On Windows I often run jobs overnight that take 6-7 hours to complete. It's annoying to discover in the morning that Windows aborted my job to install some update, and I have to restart the thing for the next night. This never happens on Ubuntu.
    - tracker1 10y ago
      Note, if you aren't on an LTS release, don't wait too long... my grandmother is on 14.10, and can no longer run updates (servers appear to be gone) and no clean upgrade path to 16.04, so I'll be copying her profile directory, and setting up the latest version... fortunately, she only uses the browser and a couple of old games installed via wine.
drbawb 10y ago
I use Windows 10 on my home workstation. Last week I was checking a few things in the morning before I left for work. Windows wanted to schedule updates, it suggested "9AM; because it doesn't look like you use your computer at that time." That computer hosts a Linux VM which I connect to remotely from work and use for most of my development efforts... I use it every day without fail, yet Windows thinks my computer is "idle" simply because I'm not physically sitting at the terminal moving the mouse and keyboard. I realize that's a perfectly reasonable heuristic for your average desktop user; but something about the messaging and voice of Windows 10 just really rubs me the wrong way. Previous versions of Windows seemed much less chatty, whereas now everything feels so presumptuous and autonomous all under the guise of "Cortana knows your habits better than you do."

wvenable 10y ago

I just did the Windows 10 upgrade on my laptop and at no point could I start the upgrade without explicitly clicking a button. In addition, the process starts by immediately rebooting (after downloading via Windows update and asking you to start it).

pdx 10y ago
That's a really interesting story. Let me tell you another one. Both my wife's and my son's computers updated automatically, with no button presses on their parts, even after them pressing "do not update" on all the nag screens for the past several months.
- wvenable 10y ago
  You at least have accept the license agreement, which is true of almost every piece of software. I've still got half my machines on Windows 7/8 and I haven't upgraded them yet. On this laptop I actually had it download Windows 10 but I wasn't ready to upgrade so I held it off for another week. I still had to press something to get it to start.
- intopieces 10y ago
  On the pop-ups that appear on my Windows 7 machine, there is no button they says "Do Not Update"; both buttons (Update now, update later) lead the system to download and install Windows 10. That both of your users report explicitly clicking a button that references update makes me suspicious that they in fact just clicked the wrong button. Sneaky of Microsoft, but I'm having trouble buying these tales of the OS going rogue. I just haven't seen any way for that to happen.
  - vetinari 10y ago
    Even dismissing the windows is considered "yes, upgrade". That way beyond sneaky, that's just black pattern.
    - intopieces 10y ago
      But the upgrade still requires that the user accept the EULA. I agree that the system is hostile to user preference (any reports of a computer behaving in a way the user doesn't expect should be examined, whether the user "should know better" or not) but it's important to get to the bottom of exactly what happened, and sometimes that requires figuring it what the user actually did, not just what they report they did. Anyone who has worked in tech support has this instinct.
      - vetinari 10y ago
        Yes, it is necessary to accept EULA. However, consider it also from the user's POV. The update will download gigabytes of data, will do everything possible to get anything from the user that can pass as "agreement" and then update the software. Then it will reboot machine and present the new EULA. If the user disagrees with the EULA, it will restore the original system - but not right now. It will take tens of minutes (not everyone has SSD) and during this time, the users is practically locked out of using the computer. If you are small entrepreneur, this is basically time when you cannot work and it's not your fault. Some of these folks cannot afford to wait a hour or so for the system to restore. And this will be not final - who guaranteed that the windows update will not try again in a few weeks, once Microsoft steps up the campaign again?
        amluto 10y ago
        I wonder if the EULA is enforceable at all, given the circumstances. "Accept or I'll break your computer for hours" seems like a contract accepted under duress.
- Decade 10y ago
  I’ve never seen this. Partly it may be A/B testing and I was never in the B group, but I think people are closing dialog boxes without thinking enough about how they’re closing them, and accidentally agreeing to upgrade.
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    No matter the dialog box, closing it should always mean "do nothing and go back to where I was before", not "do your sneaky crap later when I'm asleep or busy". Anything else is a malignant antipattern.
    - freehunter 10y ago
      Don't Chrome and Firefox do this by default now? Automatically download an update in the background and install it without asking when you close the browser window?
      - Vexs 10y ago
        There's a pretty sizable difference between chrome updates and updating from 7 to 10. The fundamentals of chrome remain the same, and for 99% of users they don't notice a difference. Granted, they've never really done a "chrome 2" style of upgrade, and I'm curious how they'll handle it.
      - sametmax 10y ago
        Do not compare an a paid OS I run a business on which upgrade one entire version, force rebooting, freezing my machine and introducing incompatibilities and spywares with an free opensource browser that I can merely swap with any competitor at a click of a button in my start menu. I don't run my main source of income on Firefox or Android. I didn't pay a licence for a browser or a phone OS. I can't find a quick alternative as quickly for my dev laptop as I can for those. Hopefully I got a dual boot and make sure I don't boot Windows anymore, otherwise it would be really dangerous, as I could be giving a training and suddenly get my machine locked for some undesired upgrade in from of my customers.

Bartweiss 10y ago

My biggest aggravation with Windows is the pattern of unapproved restarts. Sure, there's usually a setting to disable it, and a popup to delay it, but it's not really enough. The setting appears unreliable at best, and the popup is useless when it pops under fullscreen programs. It really only takes one ill-timed restart to damn an OS forever, especially when the restart is chased by lengthy (and impossible to decline) downtime while a patch or upgrade is installed. Restarting on someone during a Skype interview or business call is shockingly unacceptable, no matter how sensible the average case.

WorldMaker 10y ago
The interesting thing here is that Windows 8, 8.1 and 10 all improved the Windows Update restart timing logic and made it more transparent. (There's a section that states "A restart is planned, Windows has determined the most likely idle time to try the restart is 3:43am" now, for instance.) In this case it's Windows 7's Restart logic that is old/bad (and long has been), not Windows 10, but Windows 10 of course is getting blamed for it, not Windows 7. It's another reason people should stop worrying and upgrade to Windows 10. ;)
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  That's not an excuse. Microsoft can and has been pushing updates to 7 to enable the constant upgrade nagging. They've even been continually pushing new updates that get more and more naggy. There is nothing preventing them from including an update that makes 7's restart logic less sadistic, but they've chosen not to do that.
  - eropple 10y ago
    Can you explain to me why Microsoft should expend time and effort to encourage behavior (staying on Windows 7) that increases their costs and increases fragility in their ecosystem? I'm not sympathetic to the dark patterns they use to push people to upgrade, but I'm 100% onboard with not pushing improvements to an older operating system.

snerbles 10y ago

It was either not fully thought out, or Microsoft's analysis figured that it would cost less to do it this way. Anecdote: When I worked dispatch, the local Network Operations Center pushed out an update that forcibly rebooted all of our Windows workstations...including the machine that ran inbound emergency calls. The admins at the NOC didn't think that anyone would dial 911 at three in the morning. No malfeasance, but a simple lack of foresight.

Fordrus 10y ago
See, this is a GREAT comparison, because thinking, "No one will call 911 at 3am" EASILY falls into the realm of destructive negligence. Like "I didn't realize these cars could be hit from the side!" or, "I didn't realize how much worse I drive when I am drunk, officer!" In the 3am 911 case, those admins could EASILY have cost LIVES with their decision. If that inbound call handler's machine had updates waiting, or more especially had any difficulty installing those updates, you could've had HOURS of downtime in a scenario where MINUTES mean life or death! I guess my main point is that naivete like that is called criminal negligence and is punishable under the law in many cases. There may have been no malicious intent, but in a case so potentially catastrophic, it hardly matters, and if those admins didn't get into DEEP TROUBLE, they're either very lucky or your administrative discipline system is VERY broken. And Microsoft is straying into similar territory with this whole thing.
- snerbles 10y ago
  > and if those admins didn't get into DEEP TROUBLE, they're either very lucky or your administrative discipline system is VERY broken Our commander talked to their commander, I'm sure at least one finger was wagged at them in disapproval.
  - tremon 10y ago
    and this is how incompetence lives on.
- freehunter 10y ago

Spooky23 10y ago

Try being a fast-track user. I get that volunteering to beta-test comes with some pain, but I literally went to go use the bathroom mid-day, and I came back to Windows 10 reverting to an older build. Bizarre.

cordite 10y ago

Restarting and installing a new OS without intent during a call is definitely bad. Also, restarting to install updates while in the middle of a presentation at work was disrupting and humiliating. Happened to me.

WalterBright 10y ago

I've had various problems with running a long job, and then Windows popping up and saying it's going to restart shortly to install updates. Or I want to open my laptop to check something, and it demands the power plugged in so it can spend 10-20 minutes installing updates. I've worried about it doing this nonsense when I'm using it to do a presentation or something.

tracker1 10y ago
IIRC, you can specify a time of day to update, and mostly, you get an option to retry in 4 hours (or tomorrow, etc)... most corporate environments are using services to defer updates to scheduled times.. and at home, I just leave it on/auto. My understanding it's only after a few days of nagging that you can't defer the updates anymore. If you can't reboot your computer for over two days, you may want to rethink your workflow... I tend to completely shutdown/restart at least every night/morning, and if I had critical pending updates, would probably let them run at lunch, just closing everything before that. This happens maybe once a month, and is just the cost of having a computer... "Oh man, I have to stop my car and turn it off to get gas once a week. Or when I get my oil changed every few months..."
- WalterBright 10y ago
  Ubuntu does it right. It only nags me when I log in, and I can dismiss it with a click, and I don't get nagged again until I log in again. Edit: On Windows I often run jobs overnight that take 6-7 hours to complete. It's annoying to discover in the morning that Windows aborted my job to install some update, and I have to restart the thing for the next night. This never happens on Ubuntu.
  - tracker1 10y ago
    Note, if you aren't on an LTS release, don't wait too long... my grandmother is on 14.10, and can no longer run updates (servers appear to be gone) and no clean upgrade path to 16.04, so I'll be copying her profile directory, and setting up the latest version... fortunately, she only uses the browser and a couple of old games installed via wine.

drbawb 10y ago

I use Windows 10 on my home workstation. Last week I was checking a few things in the morning before I left for work. Windows wanted to schedule updates, it suggested "9AM; because it doesn't look like you use your computer at that time." That computer hosts a Linux VM which I connect to remotely from work and use for most of my development efforts... I use it every day without fail, yet Windows thinks my computer is "idle" simply because I'm not physically sitting at the terminal moving the mouse and keyboard. I realize that's a perfectly reasonable heuristic for your average desktop user; but something about the messaging and voice of Windows 10 just really rubs me the wrong way. Previous versions of Windows seemed much less chatty, whereas now everything feels so presumptuous and autonomous all under the guise of "Cortana knows your habits better than you do."