8 ms·

Don't tell people to turn off Windows Update

63 points by Nitishshah700 9y ago

pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
I find the Windows Update in windows10 pretty good :-) Not as good as OS X update mechanism, but it's miles ahead of what we had in previous Windows :-)
- JensRex 9y ago
  I'm reading this tread and thinking "am I the only person who's not bothered by Windows Update?" It just does whatever does, and occasionally asks me to reboot, which I do. And life goes on.
deleted 9y ago
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merricksb 9y ago
Heavily discussed at time of publication 7 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14340286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14340286
- frik 9y ago
  It's very relevant even today. Don't dismiss it wit "dupe".
- hungerstrike 9y ago
  I see a lot of articles that are dupes, but nobody ever says anything. Just curious - Are we all allowed to talk about something twice or not? Looks like plenty of people commented on this posting of the story, so I'm left wondering - what's the intention of this comment? I don't see anything in the guidelines about duplicates here - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Are moderators responsible for pointing this out or just regular users? Who eventually marks something as a dupe? Is it in response to a comment like this? Is this actually the most highly rated comment or did mods put it there? (Again - just curious!)
  - willstrafach 9y ago
    I always figured such comments were primarily made to allow additional reading, for those interested.
  - merricksb 9y ago
    The site policy about reposts/dupes is explained in the FAQs: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html If a story has had significant attention in the last year or so, we kill reposts as duplicates. If not, a small number of reposts is ok. And you can see more commentary on it from dang via this search: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dang%20significant%20attention%20year&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dang%20significant%20attention... Any user can point out that a link is a dupe or has been posted before. It's helpful for others to be able to see earlier discussions (whether or not it was in the past 12 months and qualifies as a dupe), and evidently moderators don't always realise something is a repost until a user points it out. There are no hard and fast rules about what user can or should comment about stuff like this, but the mods seem to appreciate it any time people are helpful. And when a post is marked as dupe, the mods will push the explanatory comment (either from them or another user who already pointed it out) to the top of the thread.
    - deleted 9y ago
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foobar1962 9y ago
A comment at the end of the article: >Lost productivity to malware = 0hrs. Lost productivity to windows auto updates = 28 hrs. Sitting here right now losing time and money to an unauthorized update. I know how to avoid malware on my work laptop. That's a bit like how some people (who weren't THERE) think the Y2K-thing was a non-event: they didn't see all the work that got done fixing things before the big day.
- jmkni 9y ago
  > This malware is tracking everything I type, but at least it's not slowing me down
- pooper 9y ago
  Sorry, friend but you are wrong on this. A simple change would fix the problem which is don't restart the computer! You can update anything and do anything when the computer is plugged in but please don't restart the computer or at least let users decide when they want to restart their computers. Even fedora does a better job with software updates. There is a checkbox when you turn off or restart the computer. If you check it, fedora will install updates and shut down/reboot. Why is this so difficult? Security without usability is worthless.
  - moreless 9y ago
    What do you mean "even Fedora"? Linux had updates figured out decades ago. They are applied in the background (so you can keep working), usually don't need restart, and if reboot is needed, it's just that - a fast reboot without applying any updates and similar. Because they were already applied, you just boot to a new copy of kernel + modules. Windows always sucked at this, it just took a turn for worse in Windows 7 and 10. If I tried to come up with a more annoying updates system I really couldn't. It's incredible how difficult it is for them to pull their act together on this one.
    - pooper 9y ago
      Sorry, i didnt mean it as an insult. I use fedora every day but i imagine they have fewer resources than Microsoft does. I am not sure about windows 7 and 10. We are arguably better off today than in the ActiveX days. It made no sense to require using windows internet exploder to download windows update.
nofilter 9y ago
Last I checked, even if you wanted to, you couldn't turn off Windows Updates.
- shak77 9y ago
  You can, using group policies or changing the registry.
- kachurovskiy 9y ago
  Windows Update likes to kick in when I'm playing online, making fps drop to 10. Tried all the buttons to make it ask before downloading stuff but it didn't help. My last punch was disabling the Windows Update service.
  - pooper 9y ago
    Please don't disable windows update for gaming. There is a gaming mode (which really ought to be called normal mode) which should help. The only other stipulation is you must keep your computer plugged in, turned on, and connected to the Internet as much as you can so windows can do its thing while you're not using it.
    - bschwindHN 9y ago
      Windows: it's like a small child you have to take care of. They're lucky gaming is most popular on Windows, otherwise they've got zero going for them.
- Anarch157a 9y ago
  You need to disable wuauserv.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- stordoff 9y ago
  On Pro (IIRC it's not available on Home), you can disable the installation of updates via Group Policy, and on Home there are likely non-standard ways on doing it.
throwaway13337 9y ago
Security fails when a large percentage of the your customers think it's too painful to use. That's a failing of your software, not the customer. OSX and Chrome gets it right. It's possible.
- cleeus 9y ago
  OSX gets it right? Yeah, by delaying many security updates. I admit though when they do updates, you barely notice.
- romanovcode 9y ago
  I don't get it. How is updates painful? You do not have to restart your PC when they show up, just like on MacOS - you can click "Restart Later".
  - bambax 9y ago
    For me, updates are painful because they don't work. They just make you waste your time and then roll back the machine to where it was before the update.
  - scotty79 9y ago
    Recently I pulled my laptop out of my bag and tried to turn it on to copy CD with MRI results. I was greeted by "Keep you computer on. Windows is updating." Good that it turned out I really didn't have to copy that CD then.
  - throwawayReply 9y ago
    Windows is far more painful. Firstly, it'll keep prompting even if you choose "restart later". Secondly, unlike most linux environments, it doesn't perform the updates which take effect next restart, it actually performs the update next restart. That means if you find yourself needing to restart forgetting you've updated, you can find yourself suddenly having to wait a very long time before your computer is usable again. They often take multiple 'restarts' to apply, typically you might have to wait the first shutdown, then when it boots back up it'll be "applying updates", then it'll restart again having done those updates. Occasionally you'll even get a third restart. That's compared to 'nix applying the updates but them not having taken effect until a restart which isn't normally noticeably slower than any other restart.
orf 9y ago
You see a lot of this kind of thing in HN threads as well, (including using older unmainted/vulnerable browsers), where there is presumably a subset of users who have very strong feelings about automatic updates and are also blind to the security implications of disabling them. Keep your machines and software updated with the latest patches people. Keep your parents and non technical friends machines updated with the latest security updates. Don't ever tell them to disable it because your heavily customized windows 7 setup broke a little bit one time after a huge windows update.
- Anarch157a 9y ago
  Security patches are a good thing, but reseting privacy settings, reinstalling Candy Crush Whatever/Cortana/Skype, re-enabling spy/adware, changing the UI EVERY.DAMN.TIME. is definitelly not good. There are so much abuse people can take before they start considering the actual malware a lesser evil than Microsoft's malware-like OS. My Windows box is running 10 LTSB with wuauserv disabled. I keep zero important stuff there, most of my gamesaves are synced with cloud servers from the game's developers (Overwatch and Elite: Dangerous) or from the store (Steam and GoG), so I can wipe it out any time with no real losses. The important stuff (taxes, documents, pictures, etc.) are all on a notebook running Debian that is mostly kept cold. Speaking on Debian, Microsoft could learn a LOT from them. Specially with regards to the strict policy of not adding new features to a stable version.
  - Feniks 9y ago
    One of the best things about LTSB is cumulative updates. I get 1.5Gb of security and bug fixes every month or so that quietly installs in the background. Like it was in Win7. And when its done it just sits there waiting for me to MANUALLY push the restart system button. Without ever nagging about it. Honestly regular Windows is a fucking joke.
    - Anarch157a 9y ago
      > I get 1.5Gb of security and bug fixes every month That's a joke all by itself. Not even a rolling release distro like Debian Unstable or Arch produce that volume of patches in a whole year... Windows has two major problems in regards to updates: 1. It's utter inability to update files that are currently open by programs. All Unix and Unix-likes can handle deleting/moving/replacing open files gracefully by keeping a reference to the old file in memory. Windows can't, so the only way to update the most used DLLs is by rebooting. 2. It's a monolithic system, with so many cross dependencies, it's almost impossible to make small, punctual updates of independent packages. Hell, Unix was 23 years already when Windows NT 3.1 was finally released, MS used to develop and sell Xenix, yet they learned nothing from those. It ridiculous how inept they are handling updates. If they ever ask me how to do it properly, I'd advise them to throw the whole idea of Windows in the trash and start again from a BSD (or maybe buy Solaris from Oracle). Slap an improved WINE for partial, best performance compatibility and a full VM for lower performance, full compatibility. It worked well for Apple while transitioning from "classic" MacOS to MacOS X, it could work for MS, as long as they don't screw it up completely.
mschuster91 9y ago
> Microsoft needs to make Windows Update better. Microsoft especially needs to do two things: 1) respect the DHCP settings that tethered devices provide (Android provides option 43/ANDROID_METERED) and NOT suck every data plan dry when on the road (maybe would be worth to expose an API to applications "the primary internet connection is metered, do not suck dry", given how huge any kind of update is these day) 2) give users the fucking option to only subscribe for security updates and not for the latest "feature" set. I know many people who disabled Windows 7 auto-updates after every other month MS would re-enable the W10 update nagware screen. This is way beyond hostile behavior, not even Apple goes this low. I went Apple once Win8 was coming out, definitely not going back until MS either gets a grip or makes W10 LTSB (the one on a "stable" track e.g. for embedded devices, without nagware, ads or other bullshit) available for general sale. oh, and 3) provide a Windows 7 Service Pack 3 and installation media with all the updates preinstalled. Having to either upgrade by hand or mess around with ISOs is not exactly customer friendly.
- aldanor 9y ago
  > not even Apple goes this low That's an interesting new standard of bad behaviour :)
- polygot 9y ago
  There's a way to choose the business branch instead of the comsumer branch, which might delay some of the feature updates. Iirc there was an option to delay features by up to 180 days, but that doesn't actually stop the updates though.
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    For the enterprise editions yes, but I'm not aware of any way to do so for the "consumer" editions...
    - virgulino 9y ago
      It is available on the "Pro" edition, on the control panel.
Grollicus 9y ago
On the other hand python virtualenvs, npm, docker containers almost never get updated and people almost religiously fight for the ability to freeze packages at specific versions.
bambax 9y ago
Here's how Windows Update "works" for me: "installs" an untold number of patches, does an untold number of reboots, then displays that the update "failed", and undoes all said patches, with the same number of reboots, to bring my PC back to where it was before the update. Failures have generic error messages that don't point to any useful information from the (abysmally bad) MS forums. So yes, it is disabled. Once every few months, I try again, and usually get the same result. I have multiple backups of everything, so hopefully if WannaCry 2 hits, I'll survive. Or maybe not, but in the meantime, I'm sorry but I can't spend all my time watching my PC doing updates that don't update anything.
- imtringued 9y ago
  I had the same problem. Don't waste your time like I did by searching for a solution beyond reinstalling windows. Reinstallation is the only way.
  - mehrdadn 9y ago
    Reinstallation is not the only way. I had this problem on a fresh install on a VM, meaning reinstalling would have resulted in exactly the same problem. The only way is to remove it and literally install a newer version of Windows, i.e. one with the offending update already incorporated.
  - marktangotango 9y ago
    I actually worked through an issue like this on 7, took about a day, and only after I found the correct directions online. There was an update that broke update, that’s when I turned off win update. The only reason I use the machine is to rdp to work because I couldn’t get the Linux vpn client to work, I’ll have to revisit that.
- kbwt 9y ago
  I have the same problem with Windows 7. "Applying updates" until just over 80%, then "Update failed, reverting changes..." followed by a reboot. It goes through this cycle 3 times before finally booting to the desktop. Each attempt takes between 30 minutes and an hour. I followed all the instructions from Microsoft to reset Windows Update and ran their "Fix It" assistant multiple times. Guess I just won't be booting into Windows anymore, I only used it for a single game anyway.
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betimsl 9y ago
Tell them to install a better OS.
Grollicus 9y ago
I think a lot of the hate for Windows Update is because of how slow it is. I have a Windows machine I use for gaming. Its started about once a month and whenever I turn it on it is almost unusable for the first 30 minutes because its checking for updates and installing them. This is totally on Microsoft and their bloated update mechanism.
- sandworm101 9y ago
  Same with my work computers. They randomly decide it's update time and i sit spinning in my chair for half an hour. Then spend another half hour seeing if updating broke anything.
- hengheng 9y ago
  Windows machines need to be on for about half a day every week. I know no other device that needs this kind of attention, apart from helicopter gas turbines that are best kept slowly spinning.
  - mehrdadn 9y ago
    Microsoft thinks just because Google can force-feed Chrome updates to users, it can do that with Windows too. It doesn't seem to comprehend that an OS has fundamentally more stringent availability and reliability requirements than a browser. For example, my Chrome ("stable") right now just renders most new windows as completely white -- no address bar or anything else. Because Google decided to force-feed me a buggy version I never wanted or asked for. So I have to open 2-3 new windows before I get a working one. It's painful but I can still do that, or use Firefox/IE if all else fails. If this kind of crap happened with the OS I would not be able to use my laptop at all.
    - stordoff 9y ago
      It's also a different install process. Chrome doesn't decide to automatically close itself to apply the updates, and they are applied fast enough that you usually don't notice unless something changed. Neither can be said for Windows - the reboots are often unexpected and the install can be lengthy. If Microsoft got it closer to Chrome (no forced reboots and applied without triggering a potential long "Configuring Windows Updates" stage), it'd be much less of an issue IMO.
stephengillie 9y ago
In the newest AWS Workspaces images, Windows Update is disabled. I'm having to enable it manually on newly-deployed Workspaces. (Probably a bug that will get reverted on their next refresh.)
asdsasds 9y ago
As a Sys admin i can say only F YO(( very much: - delay windows update by 2 days - see what happens - ohhh no 1% users blue screen 10% auto update on - watt for final path - still blue screen of dead - wait for new windows path - install on 10% more machine do snapshots - wiat for new pathes - install on 10% machines - ok its now works without issue - install on 100% PC
sus_007 9y ago
A Windows Insider Here, and while I'm enjoying the Ubuntu Subsystem on my machine, I somewhat regret opting in. I hate waiting for hours just for getting some negligible updates & patches for Windows Defender AV or a software I don't use like Paint 3D, Mixed Reality Viewer, etc . Still, I like showing off my fancy terminal to other Windows noobs.
- JorgeGT 9y ago
  But WSL was released to the regular builds in August 2016?
- slfnflctd 9y ago
  I'm pretty happy with dual booting. Restarting the machine into a solid Linux distro on a modern machine takes maybe 30 seconds (often quicker restarting back into Windows), and it's nice to get MS out of my face for a while. The whole subsystem thing always seemed like the worst of both worlds to me.
legionth 9y ago
Nice try, Bill.
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taspeotis 9y ago
I think it's great that Microsoft are pushing updates but it's slowly wearing me down. Keep in mind I'm 100% on board with getting security updates out as broadly as possible as fast as possible. But for the last two days Windows Update has gone rogue and started gobbling up CPU. GOG Galaxy has gone nuts as well, I uninstalled it but I can't uninstall Windows Update. I can't even stop Windows Update, it'll go into the "Stopping" state but ... no dice. It's like literally everything is coming for my CPU [1] for updates updates updates. It's a 6700K so there's 8 threads at 4GHz being used 60%... I'll probably re-install Windows 10 over the Christmas break and cross my fingers. [1] https://imgur.com/a/8hZXE https://imgur.com/a/8hZXE (Windows Update is Service Host: Local System (3) along with Update Orchestrator Service and Remote Access Connection Manager.
- yummy 9y ago
  I've used W10 since it's release (August 2015) on many devices, and it only keeps getting worse. There's no way they do this unintentionally. At work I primarily use Linux, but also have a W10 laptop for testing. I'm used to the fact that the OS can eat all of your CPU and SSD (50-100% SSD usage for 30min? WTF is it doing?), you have no idea when it stops and you have no control over it. Last time I was unable to use the laptop for a good hour. Sometimes longer.
jchw 9y ago
Having used a Chromebook, I hope someday desktop operating systems can become as easy to update. All you really ever have to do is restart and things are up to date. Mostly similar with Android on the Google Pixel phones. Google is oddly ahead of the curve with making updates really painless. Of course, inconvenient or not, it's pretty hard to deny that disabling updates is a stupid proposition.
sshagent 9y ago
Initially Windows 10 felt fresh and nice, combined with all the other 'nice' things Microsoft have been up to...i was happy. Being able to ssh from windows cmdline...excellent stuff. But... ...with every stupid update, and after every boot up Windows insists on settings, programs and games it wants you to have. Should i have to curate my own powershell script to disable and remove some of the shit that gets forced on me. I paid for my OS, why do i get to suffer like this. Microsoft please sort this out, you're pushing me away. You know, looking at the Steam for Linux game list now, we're getting close to a point where the Gamer in me might see an opportunity to leave.
BlackFly 9y ago
Windows update worked a lot better for me when there was the notification of updates. I shut my computer down every day, so I would update my computer every Tuesday when I turned it off. Now, they have completely broken my work flow for staying up to date. There are no "active hours", if my computer is on, I am using it. No, I don't want you downloading updates without my permission, I am actually trying to use my internet without latency and bandwidth issues. I understand I am not the majority of users, but it is very clearly the power users that understand windows update that are creating blog posts on how to disable windows update, so maybe to avoid the cobra effect Microsoft should cater to such power users even if the majority of people aren't going to use those features. As it is, for me, a more effective work flow would be to disable automatic updates and just check every Tuesday when I don't actively need my internet or mind my computer rebooting. The problem is, I am fallible. If only there was some way to remind me.
Feniks 9y ago
If only Microsoft could separate feature updates from security and bugfixes... Oh wait they can! They are! I'm using Enterprise LTSB. Solid as a rock. Windows as a service: they haven't done anything since 1607 that I want.
dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
I actually agree with the person commenting the original article: > The "security updates" situation reminds me of organized crime's protection racket: Either pay us to "protect" you or bad things will happen. In the case of automatic "security" updates -- and not just Microsoft's -- we're compelled to pay in computers and programs that are corrupted with unwanted new behaviors. If you don't accept those, well then your computer will be insecure. So "pay up" or else.
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krylon 9y ago
> Sometimes, updates will annoy you Unfortunately, that is an understatement. If you are using a Windows computer at home, it's one thing. If you are responsible for a company network of 80+ clients, Windows updates (pre Windows-10, at least, I have no experience with Windows 10, yet) are a little bit like Russian roulette. It's one thing if an update breaks third-party software; I suspect this usually means the third-party software did some questionable things begin with or is just crawling with bugs (I am looking at you, Siemens!). But if Windows updates break functionality like, say, communication with a WSUS, or booting properly (I could go on and on and on...), it is my responsibility to at least do some research how this month's update may affect my users, instead of blindly installing anything Microsoft throws my way. I wholeheartedly agree that keeping systems up to date is very important. But unless Microsoft gets its act together and makes updating as painless as on, say, Debian or CentOS, I am going to have mixed feelings on the subject.
yellowapple 9y ago
It continues to amaze me that Windows is so terrible at system updates when pretty much every Linux distro out there has done it in a more-or-less sane way since day 1. openSUSE doesn't require sitting at the shutdown and startup screens for hours when I install a single update. Ubuntu doesn't forcibly reboot itself if I leave it unattended. CentOS doesn't disguise new "features" and nagware as critical security updates. Slackware doesn't burn through my mobile data constantly downloading updates. Even Android seems to do a better job than Windows, and Windows Update alone has existed for longer than Android has at all. If Microsoft knew how to do system updates in a way that wasn't an absolute fucking pain, then I'd be a lot less tempted to just turn off automatic updates on Windows.
finnthehuman 9y ago
Well, yeah, obviously a bad idea. But the real question everyone in "security" should be asking themselves is "if the idea of having better security is such an easy sell to even the vaguely-clued-in, what have we implemented so poorly that people still use insecure practices? Or go out of their way to disable security?" The article's point here is that no matter how much windows update might suck, you still need to use it. And that's the problem with security people in general. It's not like they "think their shit doesn't stink" it's that they everyone must put up with whatever level of stench because security is just that important. Which gives them zero incentive to reduce the smell. They'll probably just blame the developers for fucking up the distribution mechanism the same way they blame developers for having the temerity to write bugs. Unfortunately, the impression I get is that "the security community's" answer is that users do things like disabling windows update because security hasn't been sanctimonious enough towards the unwashed masses, and we should just get on with taking away all of end users' control over their systems for their own good.
Silhouette 9y ago
I normally have a lot of time for Troy Hunt, but on this one I'm not sure I agree with him. If Windows Update provided only essential updates for security and stability by default, and if it did so transparently so everyone could see exactly what was being done and why, and if it did so with minimal interruption to the user's real work, he would have a decent argument. But none of those things is the case. Look at the comments on the article, or here, or on countless other forums since the Windows 10 fiasco started. Heck, look at Troy's own acknowledgement: I've had Windows Update make me lose unsaved work. I've had it sitting there pending while waiting to rush out the door. I've had it install drivers that caused all manner of problems. I've had it change features so that they work differently and left me confused. I've had it consume bandwidth, eat up storage capacity and do any number of unexplainable things to my machines. I've seen those things too, and more. I've seen unfortunately timed updates cripple a sales team right before a crucial demo, months in the making, that was supposed to close a £1M deal... in a small business that closes perhaps 2-3 such deals a year and relies on them to pay everyone's salary. Not much point worrying about encrypted filesystems if your business went bust already. The fundamental problem here is that Microsoft is no longer trustworthy. They have demonstrated, repeatedly, that through both negligence and malice they will break systems that install their updates. The Microsoft that some of us trusted back when we bought our Windows 7 machines is not the Microsoft of the past few years, but we're stuck with those machines now, so we have to find the least risky path forwards taking into account as many potential problems as we can. It is far from clear to me, on the evidence to date, that accepting all of Microsoft's updates by default is safer than rejecting all of them by default.
thijsvandien 9y ago
I just hate the moving platform that Windows has become. Windows 7 did plenty of updates already and they could take forever or incidentally break something, but an installed system would essentially stay the same. As of Windows 10, anything can happen at any time. You install a system, do nothing and the next day it has Candy Crush on it. (Yes, you can fiddle with the registry, but WTF??) New functionality is pushed and with it, default behavior changes. The most annoying one that comes to mind was default printer management. From one day to the next, the default printer started changing. Every time there is one more thing to remember to turn off or work around, but it won’t be enough, because at a random point in the future, Microsoft will decide you want it differently. Sometimes they ask—Edge opening to show some release notes and conveniently using the opportunity to offer to make itself the standard browser—but not using the standard browser in the first place already pisses me off and that question is really one too far. Recently a family member clicked the wrong button, making Firefox disappear, resulting in a panic call because they “lost” their bookmarks, logins, etc. /rant There are many improvements since Windows 7 that I can appreciate, but those practices—together with the increasing privacy violations—are a complete shame.
stordoff 9y ago
If Microsoft et al. want me to leave Windows Update enabled, they either need to push way less updates (security updates only track) or at least make the install process faster (which would probably be helped by not pushing new features). Losing two days of progress on a video encode[0] due to a reboot when "you aren't using your PC", or pulling out my laptop to do something time-critical to be greeted with 20 minutes of configuring Windows updates, means I'm turning it off ("download and notify to install" Group Policy setting). These are real problems; malware is only a _potential_ problem (largely mitigated by keeping offline backups). [0] Fairly ridiculous x265 settings on a laptop CPU, as I'm not keeping the source files so want to ensure optimal quality.
ScottAS 9y ago
# of times I've lost Valuable data because of malware: 0 # of times I've lost valuable data because of Windows Update: ~10 # of times malware has made my computer unbootable: 0 # of times windows update has Made my computer unbootable: 2
oliwarner 9y ago
Holy fuck, CNET actually tells people to turn off Windows Update?! I'm starting to think published tech advice should be treated like legal or financial advice. If you give out stinkers like this and they turn out to be violently harmful to its readers, you are liable for it. Microsoft doesn't get off free —they've been cocking this up consistently— but turning off WU is antivax level stupidity.
Grumbledour 9y ago
The thing I don't understand is the insistent nagging and it's persistence that a restart NOW is really needed and then often forcing you to restart. This all worked perfectly on windows 7. It downloaded in the background and would install whenever I restarted the system myself. No nagging, ever. Of course, I get why some people might have problems with automatic downloads or automatic installation on restarts, but I feel it was still worlds apart from the current windows 10 behavior and a good compromise between staying up to date and getting annoyed. So why has this actually changed? Why does it need to nag all the time now and force-restart in the middle of the workday? Who gains form this?
SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
The biggest issue is reboots. They interrupt workflow. They stop the user using the computer for several minutes: the updates are applied after the reboot instead of being applied and then switching to the new binaries, the user has to save all their work manually, the user has to restart their applications manually, and the reboots often make new updates available requiring further reboots... Reboots are a DOS attack. Don't DOS attack your users. The same goes for "feature" updates that break the existing workflow.
Necromant2005 9y ago
For those who uses windows primally for gaming in its home protected network, it's better not to update windows forever, because a new patches and fixes only make windows slower.

63 points by Nitishshah700 9y ago

I find the Windows Update in windows10 pretty good :-) Not as good as OS X update mechanism, but it's miles ahead of what we had in previous Windows :-)

JensRex 9y ago
I'm reading this tread and thinking "am I the only person who's not bothered by Windows Update?" It just does whatever does, and occasionally asks me to reboot, which I do. And life goes on.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

merricksb 9y ago

Heavily discussed at time of publication 7 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14340286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14340286

frik 9y ago
It's very relevant even today. Don't dismiss it wit "dupe".
hungerstrike 9y ago
I see a lot of articles that are dupes, but nobody ever says anything. Just curious - Are we all allowed to talk about something twice or not? Looks like plenty of people commented on this posting of the story, so I'm left wondering - what's the intention of this comment? I don't see anything in the guidelines about duplicates here - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Are moderators responsible for pointing this out or just regular users? Who eventually marks something as a dupe? Is it in response to a comment like this? Is this actually the most highly rated comment or did mods put it there? (Again - just curious!)
- willstrafach 9y ago
  I always figured such comments were primarily made to allow additional reading, for those interested.
- merricksb 9y ago
  The site policy about reposts/dupes is explained in the FAQs: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html If a story has had significant attention in the last year or so, we kill reposts as duplicates. If not, a small number of reposts is ok. And you can see more commentary on it from dang via this search: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dang%20significant%20attention%20year&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=dang%20significant%20attention... Any user can point out that a link is a dupe or has been posted before. It's helpful for others to be able to see earlier discussions (whether or not it was in the past 12 months and qualifies as a dupe), and evidently moderators don't always realise something is a repost until a user points it out. There are no hard and fast rules about what user can or should comment about stuff like this, but the mods seem to appreciate it any time people are helpful. And when a post is marked as dupe, the mods will push the explanatory comment (either from them or another user who already pointed it out) to the top of the thread.
  - deleted 9y ago
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foobar1962 9y ago

A comment at the end of the article: >Lost productivity to malware = 0hrs. Lost productivity to windows auto updates = 28 hrs. Sitting here right now losing time and money to an unauthorized update. I know how to avoid malware on my work laptop. That's a bit like how some people (who weren't THERE) think the Y2K-thing was a non-event: they didn't see all the work that got done fixing things before the big day.

jmkni 9y ago
> This malware is tracking everything I type, but at least it's not slowing me down
pooper 9y ago
Sorry, friend but you are wrong on this. A simple change would fix the problem which is don't restart the computer! You can update anything and do anything when the computer is plugged in but please don't restart the computer or at least let users decide when they want to restart their computers. Even fedora does a better job with software updates. There is a checkbox when you turn off or restart the computer. If you check it, fedora will install updates and shut down/reboot. Why is this so difficult? Security without usability is worthless.
- moreless 9y ago
  What do you mean "even Fedora"? Linux had updates figured out decades ago. They are applied in the background (so you can keep working), usually don't need restart, and if reboot is needed, it's just that - a fast reboot without applying any updates and similar. Because they were already applied, you just boot to a new copy of kernel + modules. Windows always sucked at this, it just took a turn for worse in Windows 7 and 10. If I tried to come up with a more annoying updates system I really couldn't. It's incredible how difficult it is for them to pull their act together on this one.
  - pooper 9y ago
    Sorry, i didnt mean it as an insult. I use fedora every day but i imagine they have fewer resources than Microsoft does. I am not sure about windows 7 and 10. We are arguably better off today than in the ActiveX days. It made no sense to require using windows internet exploder to download windows update.

nofilter 9y ago

Last I checked, even if you wanted to, you couldn't turn off Windows Updates.

shak77 9y ago
You can, using group policies or changing the registry.
kachurovskiy 9y ago
Windows Update likes to kick in when I'm playing online, making fps drop to 10. Tried all the buttons to make it ask before downloading stuff but it didn't help. My last punch was disabling the Windows Update service.
- pooper 9y ago
  Please don't disable windows update for gaming. There is a gaming mode (which really ought to be called normal mode) which should help. The only other stipulation is you must keep your computer plugged in, turned on, and connected to the Internet as much as you can so windows can do its thing while you're not using it.
  - bschwindHN 9y ago
    Windows: it's like a small child you have to take care of. They're lucky gaming is most popular on Windows, otherwise they've got zero going for them.
Anarch157a 9y ago
You need to disable wuauserv.
deleted 9y ago
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stordoff 9y ago
On Pro (IIRC it's not available on Home), you can disable the installation of updates via Group Policy, and on Home there are likely non-standard ways on doing it.

throwaway13337 9y ago

Security fails when a large percentage of the your customers think it's too painful to use. That's a failing of your software, not the customer. OSX and Chrome gets it right. It's possible.

cleeus 9y ago
OSX gets it right? Yeah, by delaying many security updates. I admit though when they do updates, you barely notice.
romanovcode 9y ago
I don't get it. How is updates painful? You do not have to restart your PC when they show up, just like on MacOS - you can click "Restart Later".
- bambax 9y ago
  For me, updates are painful because they don't work. They just make you waste your time and then roll back the machine to where it was before the update.
- scotty79 9y ago
  Recently I pulled my laptop out of my bag and tried to turn it on to copy CD with MRI results. I was greeted by "Keep you computer on. Windows is updating." Good that it turned out I really didn't have to copy that CD then.
- throwawayReply 9y ago
  Windows is far more painful. Firstly, it'll keep prompting even if you choose "restart later". Secondly, unlike most linux environments, it doesn't perform the updates which take effect next restart, it actually performs the update next restart. That means if you find yourself needing to restart forgetting you've updated, you can find yourself suddenly having to wait a very long time before your computer is usable again. They often take multiple 'restarts' to apply, typically you might have to wait the first shutdown, then when it boots back up it'll be "applying updates", then it'll restart again having done those updates. Occasionally you'll even get a third restart. That's compared to 'nix applying the updates but them not having taken effect until a restart which isn't normally noticeably slower than any other restart.

orf 9y ago

You see a lot of this kind of thing in HN threads as well, (including using older unmainted/vulnerable browsers), where there is presumably a subset of users who have very strong feelings about automatic updates and are also blind to the security implications of disabling them. Keep your machines and software updated with the latest patches people. Keep your parents and non technical friends machines updated with the latest security updates. Don't ever tell them to disable it because your heavily customized windows 7 setup broke a little bit one time after a huge windows update.

Anarch157a 9y ago
Security patches are a good thing, but reseting privacy settings, reinstalling Candy Crush Whatever/Cortana/Skype, re-enabling spy/adware, changing the UI EVERY.DAMN.TIME. is definitelly not good. There are so much abuse people can take before they start considering the actual malware a lesser evil than Microsoft's malware-like OS. My Windows box is running 10 LTSB with wuauserv disabled. I keep zero important stuff there, most of my gamesaves are synced with cloud servers from the game's developers (Overwatch and Elite: Dangerous) or from the store (Steam and GoG), so I can wipe it out any time with no real losses. The important stuff (taxes, documents, pictures, etc.) are all on a notebook running Debian that is mostly kept cold. Speaking on Debian, Microsoft could learn a LOT from them. Specially with regards to the strict policy of not adding new features to a stable version.
- Feniks 9y ago
  One of the best things about LTSB is cumulative updates. I get 1.5Gb of security and bug fixes every month or so that quietly installs in the background. Like it was in Win7. And when its done it just sits there waiting for me to MANUALLY push the restart system button. Without ever nagging about it. Honestly regular Windows is a fucking joke.
  - Anarch157a 9y ago
    > I get 1.5Gb of security and bug fixes every month That's a joke all by itself. Not even a rolling release distro like Debian Unstable or Arch produce that volume of patches in a whole year... Windows has two major problems in regards to updates: 1. It's utter inability to update files that are currently open by programs. All Unix and Unix-likes can handle deleting/moving/replacing open files gracefully by keeping a reference to the old file in memory. Windows can't, so the only way to update the most used DLLs is by rebooting. 2. It's a monolithic system, with so many cross dependencies, it's almost impossible to make small, punctual updates of independent packages. Hell, Unix was 23 years already when Windows NT 3.1 was finally released, MS used to develop and sell Xenix, yet they learned nothing from those. It ridiculous how inept they are handling updates. If they ever ask me how to do it properly, I'd advise them to throw the whole idea of Windows in the trash and start again from a BSD (or maybe buy Solaris from Oracle). Slap an improved WINE for partial, best performance compatibility and a full VM for lower performance, full compatibility. It worked well for Apple while transitioning from "classic" MacOS to MacOS X, it could work for MS, as long as they don't screw it up completely.

mschuster91 9y ago

> Microsoft needs to make Windows Update better. Microsoft especially needs to do two things: 1) respect the DHCP settings that tethered devices provide (Android provides option 43/ANDROID_METERED) and NOT suck every data plan dry when on the road (maybe would be worth to expose an API to applications "the primary internet connection is metered, do not suck dry", given how huge any kind of update is these day) 2) give users the fucking option to only subscribe for security updates and not for the latest "feature" set. I know many people who disabled Windows 7 auto-updates after every other month MS would re-enable the W10 update nagware screen. This is way beyond hostile behavior, not even Apple goes this low. I went Apple once Win8 was coming out, definitely not going back until MS either gets a grip or makes W10 LTSB (the one on a "stable" track e.g. for embedded devices, without nagware, ads or other bullshit) available for general sale. oh, and 3) provide a Windows 7 Service Pack 3 and installation media with all the updates preinstalled. Having to either upgrade by hand or mess around with ISOs is not exactly customer friendly.

aldanor 9y ago
> not even Apple goes this low That's an interesting new standard of bad behaviour :)
polygot 9y ago
There's a way to choose the business branch instead of the comsumer branch, which might delay some of the feature updates. Iirc there was an option to delay features by up to 180 days, but that doesn't actually stop the updates though.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  For the enterprise editions yes, but I'm not aware of any way to do so for the "consumer" editions...
  - virgulino 9y ago
    It is available on the "Pro" edition, on the control panel.

Grollicus 9y ago

On the other hand python virtualenvs, npm, docker containers almost never get updated and people almost religiously fight for the ability to freeze packages at specific versions.

bambax 9y ago

Here's how Windows Update "works" for me: "installs" an untold number of patches, does an untold number of reboots, then displays that the update "failed", and undoes all said patches, with the same number of reboots, to bring my PC back to where it was before the update. Failures have generic error messages that don't point to any useful information from the (abysmally bad) MS forums. So yes, it is disabled. Once every few months, I try again, and usually get the same result. I have multiple backups of everything, so hopefully if WannaCry 2 hits, I'll survive. Or maybe not, but in the meantime, I'm sorry but I can't spend all my time watching my PC doing updates that don't update anything.

imtringued 9y ago
I had the same problem. Don't waste your time like I did by searching for a solution beyond reinstalling windows. Reinstallation is the only way.
- mehrdadn 9y ago
  Reinstallation is not the only way. I had this problem on a fresh install on a VM, meaning reinstalling would have resulted in exactly the same problem. The only way is to remove it and literally install a newer version of Windows, i.e. one with the offending update already incorporated.
- marktangotango 9y ago
  I actually worked through an issue like this on 7, took about a day, and only after I found the correct directions online. There was an update that broke update, that’s when I turned off win update. The only reason I use the machine is to rdp to work because I couldn’t get the Linux vpn client to work, I’ll have to revisit that.
kbwt 9y ago
I have the same problem with Windows 7. "Applying updates" until just over 80%, then "Update failed, reverting changes..." followed by a reboot. It goes through this cycle 3 times before finally booting to the desktop. Each attempt takes between 30 minutes and an hour. I followed all the instructions from Microsoft to reset Windows Update and ran their "Fix It" assistant multiple times. Guess I just won't be booting into Windows anymore, I only used it for a single game anyway.

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betimsl 9y ago

Tell them to install a better OS.

Grollicus 9y ago

I think a lot of the hate for Windows Update is because of how slow it is. I have a Windows machine I use for gaming. Its started about once a month and whenever I turn it on it is almost unusable for the first 30 minutes because its checking for updates and installing them. This is totally on Microsoft and their bloated update mechanism.

sandworm101 9y ago
Same with my work computers. They randomly decide it's update time and i sit spinning in my chair for half an hour. Then spend another half hour seeing if updating broke anything.
hengheng 9y ago
Windows machines need to be on for about half a day every week. I know no other device that needs this kind of attention, apart from helicopter gas turbines that are best kept slowly spinning.
- mehrdadn 9y ago
  Microsoft thinks just because Google can force-feed Chrome updates to users, it can do that with Windows too. It doesn't seem to comprehend that an OS has fundamentally more stringent availability and reliability requirements than a browser. For example, my Chrome ("stable") right now just renders most new windows as completely white -- no address bar or anything else. Because Google decided to force-feed me a buggy version I never wanted or asked for. So I have to open 2-3 new windows before I get a working one. It's painful but I can still do that, or use Firefox/IE if all else fails. If this kind of crap happened with the OS I would not be able to use my laptop at all.
  - stordoff 9y ago
    It's also a different install process. Chrome doesn't decide to automatically close itself to apply the updates, and they are applied fast enough that you usually don't notice unless something changed. Neither can be said for Windows - the reboots are often unexpected and the install can be lengthy. If Microsoft got it closer to Chrome (no forced reboots and applied without triggering a potential long "Configuring Windows Updates" stage), it'd be much less of an issue IMO.

stephengillie 9y ago

In the newest AWS Workspaces images, Windows Update is disabled. I'm having to enable it manually on newly-deployed Workspaces. (Probably a bug that will get reverted on their next refresh.)

asdsasds 9y ago

As a Sys admin i can say only F YO(( very much: - delay windows update by 2 days - see what happens - ohhh no 1% users blue screen 10% auto update on - watt for final path - still blue screen of dead - wait for new windows path - install on 10% more machine do snapshots - wiat for new pathes - install on 10% machines - ok its now works without issue - install on 100% PC

sus_007 9y ago

A Windows Insider Here, and while I'm enjoying the Ubuntu Subsystem on my machine, I somewhat regret opting in. I hate waiting for hours just for getting some negligible updates & patches for Windows Defender AV or a software I don't use like Paint 3D, Mixed Reality Viewer, etc . Still, I like showing off my fancy terminal to other Windows noobs.

JorgeGT 9y ago
But WSL was released to the regular builds in August 2016?
slfnflctd 9y ago
I'm pretty happy with dual booting. Restarting the machine into a solid Linux distro on a modern machine takes maybe 30 seconds (often quicker restarting back into Windows), and it's nice to get MS out of my face for a while. The whole subsystem thing always seemed like the worst of both worlds to me.

legionth 9y ago

Nice try, Bill.

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taspeotis 9y ago

I think it's great that Microsoft are pushing updates but it's slowly wearing me down. Keep in mind I'm 100% on board with getting security updates out as broadly as possible as fast as possible. But for the last two days Windows Update has gone rogue and started gobbling up CPU. GOG Galaxy has gone nuts as well, I uninstalled it but I can't uninstall Windows Update. I can't even stop Windows Update, it'll go into the "Stopping" state but ... no dice. It's like literally everything is coming for my CPU [1] for updates updates updates. It's a 6700K so there's 8 threads at 4GHz being used 60%... I'll probably re-install Windows 10 over the Christmas break and cross my fingers. [1] https://imgur.com/a/8hZXE https://imgur.com/a/8hZXE (Windows Update is Service Host: Local System (3) along with Update Orchestrator Service and Remote Access Connection Manager.

yummy 9y ago
I've used W10 since it's release (August 2015) on many devices, and it only keeps getting worse. There's no way they do this unintentionally. At work I primarily use Linux, but also have a W10 laptop for testing. I'm used to the fact that the OS can eat all of your CPU and SSD (50-100% SSD usage for 30min? WTF is it doing?), you have no idea when it stops and you have no control over it. Last time I was unable to use the laptop for a good hour. Sometimes longer.

jchw 9y ago

Having used a Chromebook, I hope someday desktop operating systems can become as easy to update. All you really ever have to do is restart and things are up to date. Mostly similar with Android on the Google Pixel phones. Google is oddly ahead of the curve with making updates really painless. Of course, inconvenient or not, it's pretty hard to deny that disabling updates is a stupid proposition.

sshagent 9y ago

Initially Windows 10 felt fresh and nice, combined with all the other 'nice' things Microsoft have been up to...i was happy. Being able to ssh from windows cmdline...excellent stuff. But... ...with every stupid update, and after every boot up Windows insists on settings, programs and games it wants you to have. Should i have to curate my own powershell script to disable and remove some of the shit that gets forced on me. I paid for my OS, why do i get to suffer like this. Microsoft please sort this out, you're pushing me away. You know, looking at the Steam for Linux game list now, we're getting close to a point where the Gamer in me might see an opportunity to leave.

BlackFly 9y ago

Windows update worked a lot better for me when there was the notification of updates. I shut my computer down every day, so I would update my computer every Tuesday when I turned it off. Now, they have completely broken my work flow for staying up to date. There are no "active hours", if my computer is on, I am using it. No, I don't want you downloading updates without my permission, I am actually trying to use my internet without latency and bandwidth issues. I understand I am not the majority of users, but it is very clearly the power users that understand windows update that are creating blog posts on how to disable windows update, so maybe to avoid the cobra effect Microsoft should cater to such power users even if the majority of people aren't going to use those features. As it is, for me, a more effective work flow would be to disable automatic updates and just check every Tuesday when I don't actively need my internet or mind my computer rebooting. The problem is, I am fallible. If only there was some way to remind me.

Feniks 9y ago

If only Microsoft could separate feature updates from security and bugfixes... Oh wait they can! They are! I'm using Enterprise LTSB. Solid as a rock. Windows as a service: they haven't done anything since 1607 that I want.

dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago

I actually agree with the person commenting the original article: > The "security updates" situation reminds me of organized crime's protection racket: Either pay us to "protect" you or bad things will happen. In the case of automatic "security" updates -- and not just Microsoft's -- we're compelled to pay in computers and programs that are corrupted with unwanted new behaviors. If you don't accept those, well then your computer will be insecure. So "pay up" or else.

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krylon 9y ago

> Sometimes, updates will annoy you Unfortunately, that is an understatement. If you are using a Windows computer at home, it's one thing. If you are responsible for a company network of 80+ clients, Windows updates (pre Windows-10, at least, I have no experience with Windows 10, yet) are a little bit like Russian roulette. It's one thing if an update breaks third-party software; I suspect this usually means the third-party software did some questionable things begin with or is just crawling with bugs (I am looking at you, Siemens!). But if Windows updates break functionality like, say, communication with a WSUS, or booting properly (I could go on and on and on...), it is my responsibility to at least do some research how this month's update may affect my users, instead of blindly installing anything Microsoft throws my way. I wholeheartedly agree that keeping systems up to date is very important. But unless Microsoft gets its act together and makes updating as painless as on, say, Debian or CentOS, I am going to have mixed feelings on the subject.

yellowapple 9y ago

It continues to amaze me that Windows is so terrible at system updates when pretty much every Linux distro out there has done it in a more-or-less sane way since day 1. openSUSE doesn't require sitting at the shutdown and startup screens for hours when I install a single update. Ubuntu doesn't forcibly reboot itself if I leave it unattended. CentOS doesn't disguise new "features" and nagware as critical security updates. Slackware doesn't burn through my mobile data constantly downloading updates. Even Android seems to do a better job than Windows, and Windows Update alone has existed for longer than Android has at all. If Microsoft knew how to do system updates in a way that wasn't an absolute fucking pain, then I'd be a lot less tempted to just turn off automatic updates on Windows.

finnthehuman 9y ago

Well, yeah, obviously a bad idea. But the real question everyone in "security" should be asking themselves is "if the idea of having better security is such an easy sell to even the vaguely-clued-in, what have we implemented so poorly that people still use insecure practices? Or go out of their way to disable security?" The article's point here is that no matter how much windows update might suck, you still need to use it. And that's the problem with security people in general. It's not like they "think their shit doesn't stink" it's that they everyone must put up with whatever level of stench because security is just that important. Which gives them zero incentive to reduce the smell. They'll probably just blame the developers for fucking up the distribution mechanism the same way they blame developers for having the temerity to write bugs. Unfortunately, the impression I get is that "the security community's" answer is that users do things like disabling windows update because security hasn't been sanctimonious enough towards the unwashed masses, and we should just get on with taking away all of end users' control over their systems for their own good.

Silhouette 9y ago

I normally have a lot of time for Troy Hunt, but on this one I'm not sure I agree with him. If Windows Update provided only essential updates for security and stability by default, and if it did so transparently so everyone could see exactly what was being done and why, and if it did so with minimal interruption to the user's real work, he would have a decent argument. But none of those things is the case. Look at the comments on the article, or here, or on countless other forums since the Windows 10 fiasco started. Heck, look at Troy's own acknowledgement: I've had Windows Update make me lose unsaved work. I've had it sitting there pending while waiting to rush out the door. I've had it install drivers that caused all manner of problems. I've had it change features so that they work differently and left me confused. I've had it consume bandwidth, eat up storage capacity and do any number of unexplainable things to my machines. I've seen those things too, and more. I've seen unfortunately timed updates cripple a sales team right before a crucial demo, months in the making, that was supposed to close a £1M deal... in a small business that closes perhaps 2-3 such deals a year and relies on them to pay everyone's salary. Not much point worrying about encrypted filesystems if your business went bust already. The fundamental problem here is that Microsoft is no longer trustworthy. They have demonstrated, repeatedly, that through both negligence and malice they will break systems that install their updates. The Microsoft that some of us trusted back when we bought our Windows 7 machines is not the Microsoft of the past few years, but we're stuck with those machines now, so we have to find the least risky path forwards taking into account as many potential problems as we can. It is far from clear to me, on the evidence to date, that accepting all of Microsoft's updates by default is safer than rejecting all of them by default.

thijsvandien 9y ago

I just hate the moving platform that Windows has become. Windows 7 did plenty of updates already and they could take forever or incidentally break something, but an installed system would essentially stay the same. As of Windows 10, anything can happen at any time. You install a system, do nothing and the next day it has Candy Crush on it. (Yes, you can fiddle with the registry, but WTF??) New functionality is pushed and with it, default behavior changes. The most annoying one that comes to mind was default printer management. From one day to the next, the default printer started changing. Every time there is one more thing to remember to turn off or work around, but it won’t be enough, because at a random point in the future, Microsoft will decide you want it differently. Sometimes they ask—Edge opening to show some release notes and conveniently using the opportunity to offer to make itself the standard browser—but not using the standard browser in the first place already pisses me off and that question is really one too far. Recently a family member clicked the wrong button, making Firefox disappear, resulting in a panic call because they “lost” their bookmarks, logins, etc. /rant There are many improvements since Windows 7 that I can appreciate, but those practices—together with the increasing privacy violations—are a complete shame.

stordoff 9y ago

If Microsoft et al. want me to leave Windows Update enabled, they either need to push way less updates (security updates only track) or at least make the install process faster (which would probably be helped by not pushing new features). Losing two days of progress on a video encode[0] due to a reboot when "you aren't using your PC", or pulling out my laptop to do something time-critical to be greeted with 20 minutes of configuring Windows updates, means I'm turning it off ("download and notify to install" Group Policy setting). These are real problems; malware is only a _potential_ problem (largely mitigated by keeping offline backups). [0] Fairly ridiculous x265 settings on a laptop CPU, as I'm not keeping the source files so want to ensure optimal quality.

ScottAS 9y ago

# of times I've lost Valuable data because of malware: 0 # of times I've lost valuable data because of Windows Update: ~10 # of times malware has made my computer unbootable: 0 # of times windows update has Made my computer unbootable: 2

oliwarner 9y ago

Holy fuck, CNET actually tells people to turn off Windows Update?! I'm starting to think published tech advice should be treated like legal or financial advice. If you give out stinkers like this and they turn out to be violently harmful to its readers, you are liable for it. Microsoft doesn't get off free —they've been cocking this up consistently— but turning off WU is antivax level stupidity.

Grumbledour 9y ago

The thing I don't understand is the insistent nagging and it's persistence that a restart NOW is really needed and then often forcing you to restart. This all worked perfectly on windows 7. It downloaded in the background and would install whenever I restarted the system myself. No nagging, ever. Of course, I get why some people might have problems with automatic downloads or automatic installation on restarts, but I feel it was still worlds apart from the current windows 10 behavior and a good compromise between staying up to date and getting annoyed. So why has this actually changed? Why does it need to nag all the time now and force-restart in the middle of the workday? Who gains form this?

SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago

The biggest issue is reboots. They interrupt workflow. They stop the user using the computer for several minutes: the updates are applied after the reboot instead of being applied and then switching to the new binaries, the user has to save all their work manually, the user has to restart their applications manually, and the reboots often make new updates available requiring further reboots... Reboots are a DOS attack. Don't DOS attack your users. The same goes for "feature" updates that break the existing workflow.

Necromant2005 9y ago

For those who uses windows primally for gaming in its home protected network, it's better not to update windows forever, because a new patches and fixes only make windows slower.