3 ms·

I'm working in Antarctica and we BARELY caught one of our science systems a couple hours before it was about to kick off that stupid auto-upgrade. It would have

I'm working in Antarctica and we BARELY caught one of our science systems a couple hours before it was about to kick off that stupid auto-upgrade. It would have broke a very expensive and custom box built to run these experiments, which was transported down here at great cost. If I hadn't been wandering by checking on something else I'd never have seen the window and it would've wrecked some poor grantee's years and years of work, just like that.

blakeyrat 10y ago
If it's so critical, why hadn't anybody turned off auto-updates? This problem isn't new with Windows 10. It could have just as easily upgrade to a new Windows 7 patch which broke the product.
- vocatus_gate 10y ago
  Do you want the real answer? Every grantee and science group is different, and builds their boxes back in the States with varying levels of IT competence. Being a wizard in geothermal imaging doesn't mean you're a wizard in building Windows 10 boxes. So there's all these varying groups (we support over 20 different science groups on our station alone) building their custom boxes on a variety of OS's and hardware to support all their strange sensors and equipment, and many of them are so specialized that no one is allowed to touch them. Nearly all science systems run Windows 7 or some flavor of Linux, and because there is literally YEARS of work leading up to one of these systems appearing on station, we are loath to touch them for fear of breaking some long-running or fragile science project. In this situation I used my best judgement and determined that blocking Windows 10 would prevent more problems than it would cause for this group, and fortunately I was right.
  - blakeyrat 10y ago
    Right; but you're solving a symptom, not the problem. It sounds like what you really need is some sort of approval process, or at the very least a checklist, to ensure these machines are configured in the way they should be. Or, at the very least, that the teams involved understand the implications of a computer sitting in a base in the middle of nowhere with auto-updates turned on. The point I was trying to make is that the problem you're seeing isn't specific to Windows 10; it could have easily happened on Windows 7 or 8 or 8.1 instead.

blakeyrat 10y ago

If it's so critical, why hadn't anybody turned off auto-updates? This problem isn't new with Windows 10. It could have just as easily upgrade to a new Windows 7 patch which broke the product.

vocatus_gate 10y ago
Do you want the real answer? Every grantee and science group is different, and builds their boxes back in the States with varying levels of IT competence. Being a wizard in geothermal imaging doesn't mean you're a wizard in building Windows 10 boxes. So there's all these varying groups (we support over 20 different science groups on our station alone) building their custom boxes on a variety of OS's and hardware to support all their strange sensors and equipment, and many of them are so specialized that no one is allowed to touch them. Nearly all science systems run Windows 7 or some flavor of Linux, and because there is literally YEARS of work leading up to one of these systems appearing on station, we are loath to touch them for fear of breaking some long-running or fragile science project. In this situation I used my best judgement and determined that blocking Windows 10 would prevent more problems than it would cause for this group, and fortunately I was right.
- blakeyrat 10y ago
  Right; but you're solving a symptom, not the problem. It sounds like what you really need is some sort of approval process, or at the very least a checklist, to ensure these machines are configured in the way they should be. Or, at the very least, that the teams involved understand the implications of a computer sitting in a base in the middle of nowhere with auto-updates turned on. The point I was trying to make is that the problem you're seeing isn't specific to Windows 10; it could have easily happened on Windows 7 or 8 or 8.1 instead.