4 ms·

"We currently support 45 editions of Windows. Patches for 41 of them are available now through Windows Update." Wow. I have to admit, that number larger than I

by jzl 9y ago

"We currently support 45 editions of Windows. Patches for 41 of them are available now through Windows Update." Wow. I have to admit, that number larger than I would have guessed. (I probably would have said 20.) But ultimately not too surprising.

rahkiin 9y ago
Did they not cause this themselves when making 'home' 'professional' 'enterprise' and so on versions of each of their major versions?
em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
Dealing with such a large number of versions must be a nightmare. A nightmare of Microsoft's own creation...
- mark_l_watson 9y ago
  This is why I tacitly approve of forced (or pressured) automatic updates for Windows, macOS, and iOS. Everyone is probably safer when most efforts to fix Zero day exploits, General hardening, etc. are concentrated on fewer versions. When I want freedom to do what I want with my computer, I run Linux, but for my Apple devices I want auto updates.
  - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
    I'm not talking about being a nightmare for ysers, but a nightmare for Microsoft, which had to develop and verify the fix works for every OS variant.
    - WorldMaker 9y ago
      Right, which is why Microsoft has been tweaking its support platform with Windows 10 to try to narrow the number of simultaneous versions they must support, then all the efforts to funnel users faster through updates so that they retire updates faster. All the complaints about Windows 10 forcing users to update are exactly related to Microsoft trying to narrow the forest of possibilities of patch/update/upgrade combinations in the wild. All the complaints from companies that Windows 10 major update versions now only have 18-month support terms (as opposed to say nearly 10-years like XP), is again, Microsoft trying to shrink the forest to focus on fewer, more important trees. As a user, I want Microsoft to force more updates if it means better support and faster fixes, and it disappoints me how every time Windows 10 is brought up here on HN, or over on The Verge or Ars Technica, a half dozen people come out of the woodwork to loudly complain about Windows 10 updates.
      - spookthesunset 9y ago
        I don't think it is the updates themselves that are annoying but the fact you have to reboot all the damn time because of it. Someday, somehow, an OS vendor will invent a way to patch a running kernel and it's underlying stack without requiring a reboot.
        WorldMaker 9y ago
        That will likely only ever come when we build a better programmer with superhuman ability to track system state. But not just kernel programmers: every programmer. I heard once in a Windows Update talk (probably a BUILD talk I watched on Channel 9?) that the Windows kernel needs far fewer restarts than people assume; Microsoft just doesn't trust most application software in user space to continue to work if they silently swapped kernel components out from under it. Too much software does dumb things with system state or makes wrong assumptions about system calls (despite stacks of manuals telling them otherwise). The UWP application lifecycle model is built to support the kernel asking an app to pause, save what state it can, and restart at some point later with just a hint of its previous state. So many programmers seem to hate it (and get it wrong) because it means they have to think about state management more than they ever had to before. That API was informed by the need to restart individual applications without rebooting the entire system. If more apps followed the UWP application lifecycle well, Windows would need fewer reboots. (Compare to the Xbox One where developers were not given a choice to opt-out of the UWP application lifecycle, and it having mostly just two forced restarts a year. Also note how many game developers and app developers get the UWP application lifecycle wrong and you find games/apps in broken states when you get back to them, requiring a force quit.) The easiest thing to change is your habits as a user and make sure that reboots aren't a problem to you. Windows 10 gives a lot of warning (more so now than at launch, of course) when reboots are coming up, including not-subtle things like system notifications, and subtle places like wording changes in the Shutdown menus as updates approach (first "Restart" becomes "Update and Restart", then as the deadline looms closer, "Shutdown" becomes "Update and Shutdown"). Find software that saves more state between restarts; encourage applications to move to the UWP application lifecycle (and use it correctly); checkpoint your work more often; speed up your startup and eliminate everything you can from the critical path (sorry, Slack, you can wait a few minutes after I've finished booting; I don't need my Windows Service that performs backups to run Automatic, it's fine to be Automatic (Delayed) delay started by Windows). Those are all things you can do proactively instead of being angry at Windows needing to restart because it is overly-worried your applications will break in mysterious ways if it doesn't.
  - holograham 9y ago
    this is only really possible in a very controlled ecosystem. Apple has this down well but MSFT does not. For example for this recent patch certain (major) antivirus vendors rendered computers unusable with the update. What if MSFT force updated everyone and bricked 20+% of windows users? Not a good strategy.
ENOTTY 9y ago
They might also be counting the 40 language packs. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/available-language-packs-for-windows https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactur...
- ComputerGuru 9y ago
  They’re not.

by jzl 9y ago

rahkiin 9y ago

Did they not cause this themselves when making 'home' 'professional' 'enterprise' and so on versions of each of their major versions?

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago

Dealing with such a large number of versions must be a nightmare. A nightmare of Microsoft's own creation...

mark_l_watson 9y ago
This is why I tacitly approve of forced (or pressured) automatic updates for Windows, macOS, and iOS. Everyone is probably safer when most efforts to fix Zero day exploits, General hardening, etc. are concentrated on fewer versions. When I want freedom to do what I want with my computer, I run Linux, but for my Apple devices I want auto updates.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
  I'm not talking about being a nightmare for ysers, but a nightmare for Microsoft, which had to develop and verify the fix works for every OS variant.
  - WorldMaker 9y ago
    Right, which is why Microsoft has been tweaking its support platform with Windows 10 to try to narrow the number of simultaneous versions they must support, then all the efforts to funnel users faster through updates so that they retire updates faster. All the complaints about Windows 10 forcing users to update are exactly related to Microsoft trying to narrow the forest of possibilities of patch/update/upgrade combinations in the wild. All the complaints from companies that Windows 10 major update versions now only have 18-month support terms (as opposed to say nearly 10-years like XP), is again, Microsoft trying to shrink the forest to focus on fewer, more important trees. As a user, I want Microsoft to force more updates if it means better support and faster fixes, and it disappoints me how every time Windows 10 is brought up here on HN, or over on The Verge or Ars Technica, a half dozen people come out of the woodwork to loudly complain about Windows 10 updates.
    - spookthesunset 9y ago
      I don't think it is the updates themselves that are annoying but the fact you have to reboot all the damn time because of it. Someday, somehow, an OS vendor will invent a way to patch a running kernel and it's underlying stack without requiring a reboot.
      - WorldMaker 9y ago
        That will likely only ever come when we build a better programmer with superhuman ability to track system state. But not just kernel programmers: every programmer. I heard once in a Windows Update talk (probably a BUILD talk I watched on Channel 9?) that the Windows kernel needs far fewer restarts than people assume; Microsoft just doesn't trust most application software in user space to continue to work if they silently swapped kernel components out from under it. Too much software does dumb things with system state or makes wrong assumptions about system calls (despite stacks of manuals telling them otherwise). The UWP application lifecycle model is built to support the kernel asking an app to pause, save what state it can, and restart at some point later with just a hint of its previous state. So many programmers seem to hate it (and get it wrong) because it means they have to think about state management more than they ever had to before. That API was informed by the need to restart individual applications without rebooting the entire system. If more apps followed the UWP application lifecycle well, Windows would need fewer reboots. (Compare to the Xbox One where developers were not given a choice to opt-out of the UWP application lifecycle, and it having mostly just two forced restarts a year. Also note how many game developers and app developers get the UWP application lifecycle wrong and you find games/apps in broken states when you get back to them, requiring a force quit.) The easiest thing to change is your habits as a user and make sure that reboots aren't a problem to you. Windows 10 gives a lot of warning (more so now than at launch, of course) when reboots are coming up, including not-subtle things like system notifications, and subtle places like wording changes in the Shutdown menus as updates approach (first "Restart" becomes "Update and Restart", then as the deadline looms closer, "Shutdown" becomes "Update and Shutdown"). Find software that saves more state between restarts; encourage applications to move to the UWP application lifecycle (and use it correctly); checkpoint your work more often; speed up your startup and eliminate everything you can from the critical path (sorry, Slack, you can wait a few minutes after I've finished booting; I don't need my Windows Service that performs backups to run Automatic, it's fine to be Automatic (Delayed) delay started by Windows). Those are all things you can do proactively instead of being angry at Windows needing to restart because it is overly-worried your applications will break in mysterious ways if it doesn't.
- holograham 9y ago
  this is only really possible in a very controlled ecosystem. Apple has this down well but MSFT does not. For example for this recent patch certain (major) antivirus vendors rendered computers unusable with the update. What if MSFT force updated everyone and bricked 20+% of windows users? Not a good strategy.

ENOTTY 9y ago

They might also be counting the 40 language packs. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/available-language-packs-for-windows https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactur...

ComputerGuru 9y ago
They’re not.