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I worked in Antarctica last year, a "winter-over" contract as combination Network Engineer/Glacier Search and Rescue (GSAR) team member, at one of the very smal

I worked in Antarctica last year, a "winter-over" contract as combination Network Engineer/Glacier Search and Rescue (GSAR) team member, at one of the very small U.S. research stations. In the atmospheric/climatology lab there are a number of computers running very specific versions of Windows (down to specific patches) tailored to really obscure science research software packages, some industry standard, most custom-rolled and tailored to that project. Which means they're very fragile and need to be left alone. Of course Microsoft blasts Win10 installer files down our very expensive, very slow satellite link, and proceeds to force Win7/8 systems to Win10 which broke a few multi-million dollar experiments in a place that takes MONTHS to get to in the winter. So effectively killed the research. And yeah, you can argue "well you should've disabled Windows updates etc etc" but in REALITY, not perfect-theory world, you should be able to trust your OS manufacturer not to force-install a major OS revision without your consent. And in the old days of Microsoft, you could. Now they just say "f--- you, we're installing it regardless what you want." That company can die in a fire for all I care.

sumanthvepa 9y ago
Out of curiosity, would it not have been a better idea to build your experiments/software on Linux or a BSD variant? Was it a lack of software drivers for your equipment? Given the precise control you can get over the operating environment on these OSes, you can pretty much ensure that the environment your programs run under will never change.
- vocatus_gate 9y ago
  They weren't "my" experiments - I was the station network engineer with double-duty as helpdesk/IT person. Imagine this: you're a broke grad student and you're given $xx grant money to conduct a certain experiment in N months. What are you going to spend your VERY limited time+money on? Finding a good Linux hardware developer to roll some custom solution that no one can understand or support? Or just throw together some hacky Python or .net MVP that will run on Windows which practically anyone in the world can troubleshoot with basic knowledge? Linux is great and all (runs on all my systems except one), but it is NOT the best option when there are heavy time constraints and the system is going somewhere very remote where there will be one, MAYBE two people with basic IT knowledge to troubleshoot.
  - type0 9y ago
    What are you going to spend your VERY limited time+money on? Finding a good Linux hardware developer to roll some custom solution that no one can understand or support? Just install some distro and "just throw together some hacky Python". If you had some hardware and measurement instruments that require Windows for drivers then I could understand it, otherwise it's just negligence. > or .net MVP that will run on Windows which practically anyone in the world can troubleshoot with basic knowledge? In my experience people who claim that they could troubleshoot Windows is usually just that - they claim it but rarely can they actually fix anything. I don't know, maybe Windows is that much better and easier to use for everyone and I just can see it - who knows...
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      > If you had some hardware and measurement instruments that require Windows for drivers then I could understand it It likely is. I have read similar stores about having to refurb an aging 386 or 486 running DOS. This because it is being used to operate a very expensive particle sensor, and the company that made it is long gone. And if you want to replace said sensor you first have to get the funding to do so, and then you have to shut down the lab for a year to run calibrations so that the results from the new sensors can be compared to those of the old one.
enzanki_ars 9y ago
EDIT: Didn't recognize the username at first. I still have some doubts, but I do remember you talking about going to Antarctica in the Tron subreddit. I recently used Tron, and I hope that there isn't some undocumented part of the script that is disabling automatic updates. I have some doubts about this story... The forced Windows 10 update was only sent to non-enterprise versions of Windows. I highly doubt any of these experiments were running the home editions of Windows due to the lack of control. Also, I am pretty sure that running home versions of Windows in contexts like this is against the Windows TOS.
- creshal 9y ago
  It was sent to all versions of Windows, as long as they weren't part of an Active Directory domain, and that detection was pretty flakey, too. If you had a mixed OS environment with a Samba-based domain (or no domain at all, because these machines just take data from lab equipment and shovel it onto network shares), there was a good chance of the update firing off anyway.
  - MertsA 9y ago
    >that detection was pretty flakey, too. FWIW there was a handful of reports of exactly that happening on /r/sysadmin. There was also a ton of domain joined machines that were spammed with the Windows 10 nagware but didn't actually upgrade on their own.
- vocatus_gate 9y ago
  > I have some doubts about this story.... I highly doubt any of these experiments were running the home editions of Windows I guess you've never worked with budget-constrained grant projects before. > I do remember you talking about going to Antarctica in the Tron subreddit 7 months on ice. > I hope that there isn't some undocumented part of the script that is disabling automatic updates. Tron doesn't perform ANY undocumented actions. Unlike most the people defending Microsoft's actions in this thread, I am pro-user and seek to minimize negative impact to users in any project I'm involved in. > Also, I am pretty sure that running home versions of Windows in contexts like this is against the Windows TOS. If you're telling me there are people in the world using Windows in violation of its TOS I'm shocked, SHOCKED to say the least.
majewsky 9y ago
Serious question: Can you sue them for damages, or did they put the right weasel words into the EULA?
- vocatus_gate 9y ago
  I'd imagine with the resources at Microsoft's disposal their legal team has every possibility covered.
Freak_NL 9y ago
> Of course Microsoft blasts Win10 installer files down our very expensive, very slow satellite link […] The lesson there is that you should always quarantine computers that need to be pinned on very specific versions of an OS, especially in such a precarious setting! Those computers should not have been able to communicate over the internet at all, except for those cases where communication is part of their purpose (e.g., monitoring the experiments), and that should happen via a dedicated VPN allowing only the traffic necessary. I'm surprised this isn't the standard operating procedure for this kind of case.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  Could be it had been sitting down there for years without any incident. Best i recall, MS was very very insistent with their Win10 "upgrade". To the point that they relabeled the installer patch as critical (aka, reserved for pushing 0-day patches or similar) after people found they could change certain settings to make it go away.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    > Could be it had been sitting down there for years without any incident. Well, sure, and if they ran a critical machine with no backups whatsoever it might have also been fine for years, but that hardly makes it reasonable practice.
Arizhel 9y ago
That was the researchers' fault for using Windows as the platform for all this work. They should have known better.
- Qwertious 9y ago
  That's only second-order responsibility, and assumes we accept that Microsoft is the primary cause of the problem.

sumanthvepa 9y ago

Out of curiosity, would it not have been a better idea to build your experiments/software on Linux or a BSD variant? Was it a lack of software drivers for your equipment? Given the precise control you can get over the operating environment on these OSes, you can pretty much ensure that the environment your programs run under will never change.

vocatus_gate 9y ago
They weren't "my" experiments - I was the station network engineer with double-duty as helpdesk/IT person. Imagine this: you're a broke grad student and you're given $xx grant money to conduct a certain experiment in N months. What are you going to spend your VERY limited time+money on? Finding a good Linux hardware developer to roll some custom solution that no one can understand or support? Or just throw together some hacky Python or .net MVP that will run on Windows which practically anyone in the world can troubleshoot with basic knowledge? Linux is great and all (runs on all my systems except one), but it is NOT the best option when there are heavy time constraints and the system is going somewhere very remote where there will be one, MAYBE two people with basic IT knowledge to troubleshoot.
- type0 9y ago
  What are you going to spend your VERY limited time+money on? Finding a good Linux hardware developer to roll some custom solution that no one can understand or support? Just install some distro and "just throw together some hacky Python". If you had some hardware and measurement instruments that require Windows for drivers then I could understand it, otherwise it's just negligence. > or .net MVP that will run on Windows which practically anyone in the world can troubleshoot with basic knowledge? In my experience people who claim that they could troubleshoot Windows is usually just that - they claim it but rarely can they actually fix anything. I don't know, maybe Windows is that much better and easier to use for everyone and I just can see it - who knows...
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    > If you had some hardware and measurement instruments that require Windows for drivers then I could understand it It likely is. I have read similar stores about having to refurb an aging 386 or 486 running DOS. This because it is being used to operate a very expensive particle sensor, and the company that made it is long gone. And if you want to replace said sensor you first have to get the funding to do so, and then you have to shut down the lab for a year to run calibrations so that the results from the new sensors can be compared to those of the old one.

enzanki_ars 9y ago

EDIT: Didn't recognize the username at first. I still have some doubts, but I do remember you talking about going to Antarctica in the Tron subreddit. I recently used Tron, and I hope that there isn't some undocumented part of the script that is disabling automatic updates. I have some doubts about this story... The forced Windows 10 update was only sent to non-enterprise versions of Windows. I highly doubt any of these experiments were running the home editions of Windows due to the lack of control. Also, I am pretty sure that running home versions of Windows in contexts like this is against the Windows TOS.

creshal 9y ago
It was sent to all versions of Windows, as long as they weren't part of an Active Directory domain, and that detection was pretty flakey, too. If you had a mixed OS environment with a Samba-based domain (or no domain at all, because these machines just take data from lab equipment and shovel it onto network shares), there was a good chance of the update firing off anyway.
- MertsA 9y ago
  >that detection was pretty flakey, too. FWIW there was a handful of reports of exactly that happening on /r/sysadmin. There was also a ton of domain joined machines that were spammed with the Windows 10 nagware but didn't actually upgrade on their own.
vocatus_gate 9y ago
> I have some doubts about this story.... I highly doubt any of these experiments were running the home editions of Windows I guess you've never worked with budget-constrained grant projects before. > I do remember you talking about going to Antarctica in the Tron subreddit 7 months on ice. > I hope that there isn't some undocumented part of the script that is disabling automatic updates. Tron doesn't perform ANY undocumented actions. Unlike most the people defending Microsoft's actions in this thread, I am pro-user and seek to minimize negative impact to users in any project I'm involved in. > Also, I am pretty sure that running home versions of Windows in contexts like this is against the Windows TOS. If you're telling me there are people in the world using Windows in violation of its TOS I'm shocked, SHOCKED to say the least.

majewsky 9y ago

Serious question: Can you sue them for damages, or did they put the right weasel words into the EULA?

vocatus_gate 9y ago
I'd imagine with the resources at Microsoft's disposal their legal team has every possibility covered.

Freak_NL 9y ago

> Of course Microsoft blasts Win10 installer files down our very expensive, very slow satellite link […] The lesson there is that you should always quarantine computers that need to be pinned on very specific versions of an OS, especially in such a precarious setting! Those computers should not have been able to communicate over the internet at all, except for those cases where communication is part of their purpose (e.g., monitoring the experiments), and that should happen via a dedicated VPN allowing only the traffic necessary. I'm surprised this isn't the standard operating procedure for this kind of case.

digi_owl 9y ago
Could be it had been sitting down there for years without any incident. Best i recall, MS was very very insistent with their Win10 "upgrade". To the point that they relabeled the installer patch as critical (aka, reserved for pushing 0-day patches or similar) after people found they could change certain settings to make it go away.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  > Could be it had been sitting down there for years without any incident. Well, sure, and if they ran a critical machine with no backups whatsoever it might have also been fine for years, but that hardly makes it reasonable practice.

Arizhel 9y ago

That was the researchers' fault for using Windows as the platform for all this work. They should have known better.

Qwertious 9y ago
That's only second-order responsibility, and assumes we accept that Microsoft is the primary cause of the problem.