6 ms·

So glad now I turned off Window's updates (because no matter what I did they kept installing when they shouldn't have). I have been considering moving to linux

by alan_n 8y ago

So glad now I turned off Window's updates (because no matter what I did they kept installing when they shouldn't have). I have been considering moving to linux for a while now because there's finally good alternatives for some of the apps I use, and I'm definitely going to start the move now. I had all my user folders moved and this could have been me (and my backup drive just died too!). The user folders were actually part of the reason I disabled them. Every time, without fail, the moved user folders would get duplicated because Windows would recreate them at their default locations. I wouldn't be surprised if this bug wasn't related to that one.

diminoten 8y ago
A real Sophie's choice: have your data stolen by hackers because you're vulnerable, or have your data deleted by the patches that secure your system!
- userbinator 8y ago
  The former is blown out of proportion because the vast majority of vulnerabilities are only locally exploitable, and the rest is mostly "visit shady site in IE with default settings" with a tiny bit of "hackers can own your system if you connect it directly to the Internet and don't do anything other than leave it on." My thoughts on the above are, respectively, "meh", "why would you use IE with default settings" , and "yes I definitely need this fixed." Unfortunately Win10 doesn't give you that choice.
  - diminoten 8y ago
    So you pick "have my data and identity stolen" over "my computer occasionally restarts itself while I'm asleep". Alright, good luck!
    - exodust 8y ago
      You missed the very true point they made about overstated vulnerabilities. The odds of actually having your data compromised due to not updating for a few weeks or even months, is low. Particularly if your browsing and computer usage doesn't involve downloading dodgy software and browsing to shady unfamiliar websites, and you're at least half aware of sensible computer use, password and login use.
      - diminoten 8y ago
        This is hubris incarnate, the seatbelt argument all over again.
        exodust 8y ago
        Poor analogy, and typical of the deferred-update paranoia crowd, thinking the worst and feeling exposed because Microsoft says you are in "critical danger". A better analogy: You should keep your bicycle helmet on in the shower due to the slippery tiles and statistics of shower-related head injuries. Or this... Believe it or not, when you leave home without your umbrella, it may not rain. You know this, but you take your umbrella anyway. I choose not to.
        diminoten 8y ago
        The analogy was more than apt: a car crash is devastating, as is losing your identity, it's more likely than people tend to think, and the cost of protecting yourself against this devastating thing is relatively low. If anything, the umbrella analogy wasn't great, because getting wet is a consequence of forgetting your umbrella, and that's far from as devastating as having your identity stolen. Further, you getting wet doesn't create a negative network effect like having your computer hacked does by adding your computer to a nefarious botnet. This isn't Reddit, you can agree that the comparison was solid, but that the conclusion was still wrong. No need to go into Internet argument mode; we can have a discussion. For example, your helmet analogy in the bathtub is a decent one, except for the fact that it costs way more than running an update does to keep you safe. Are you critically vulnerable all the time? No. Are you better equipped than Microsoft to judge which updates are important and which aren't? No. It's, as I said, the definition of hubris to think otherwise. If you don't like how Windows does updates, don't use Windows -- lots of other great options. Besides, the cost is absurdly low to keep yourself safe. If you're making the choice to run an un-updated Windows machine that's connected to the Internet, you are driving without a seatbelt, and not only are you literally risking your own livelihood, but you're also putting others at risk.
- kurtisc 8y ago
  Are they security patches, though? The difference between a critical safety update and the update that adds new things to Candy Crush is imperceptible to the casual user who just wants to get work done and will foster an unfair distrust of the important need for these updates. Additionally, the implementation is frustrating and buggy. If someone updated OpenSSL from an insecure version on my machine, I'd probably never notice.
  - diminoten 8y ago
    I hear you, but your claim that Windows Update is "frustrating and buggy" just doesn't mesh with my experience, so it's hard to relate to your concern. I don't think I've ever noticed Windows update running, except for the once-a-month or so times I've come back to my computer and it's been restarted. Hardly "buggy" or "frustrating". Admittedly I don't think all Microsoft updates that get pushed out are security patches, but there are a lot of configuration options that give me control of how and when updates get applied. I find it hard to understand what the situation is that these controls aren't enough to work around any potential "critical" timeframe I might have. Besides, for important stuff that must be up all the time, everyone knows by now that *nix is the way to go, right? This is not anywhere remotely new. Running Windows is implicitly trading off 100% availability for... whatever else Windows offers (gaming compatibility, for me).
    - kurtisc 8y ago
      My frustration with a personal PC is just turning one on the morning after doing updates and having to wait an hour before I could go back to work. For silly reasons, though, I've had to update a lot of OEM Windows Home installations to new. Something like Ubuntu would have been better if starting from scratch but there was a lot of work to move the codebase to that once Windows stopped being something you could trust to turn on when you wanted it to turn on and turn off when you wanted it to turn off. Anyway, this led to days of non-deterministic updating where sometimes it would fail to find the new updates until after I left, sometimes it would fail to install an update, and sometimes it would boot-loop. But always it would take longer than installing a new Linux distribution from scratch. Now this is all anecdotal but even an installation-and-update cycle that goes well takes too long - seemingly because Windows has now mixed the worst DRM implications of SaaS and proprietary SaaP for most of its genuine customers. When I see people talking about how updates can be made to work as one would expect them to work with just a few steps (which seem to change following every major release), I'm reminded of playing with shakier Linux and FreeBSD desktop distributions as a teen. Now Ubuntu is the OS that 'just works'. My frustration about this largely comes from any complaints about the implementation being lumped in the 'ignore' bin with the Luddites who don't care about the security at all. My very proprietary Chromebook updates painlessly.

by alan_n 8y ago

diminoten 8y ago

A real Sophie's choice: have your data stolen by hackers because you're vulnerable, or have your data deleted by the patches that secure your system!

userbinator 8y ago
The former is blown out of proportion because the vast majority of vulnerabilities are only locally exploitable, and the rest is mostly "visit shady site in IE with default settings" with a tiny bit of "hackers can own your system if you connect it directly to the Internet and don't do anything other than leave it on." My thoughts on the above are, respectively, "meh", "why would you use IE with default settings" , and "yes I definitely need this fixed." Unfortunately Win10 doesn't give you that choice.
- diminoten 8y ago
  So you pick "have my data and identity stolen" over "my computer occasionally restarts itself while I'm asleep". Alright, good luck!
  - exodust 8y ago
    You missed the very true point they made about overstated vulnerabilities. The odds of actually having your data compromised due to not updating for a few weeks or even months, is low. Particularly if your browsing and computer usage doesn't involve downloading dodgy software and browsing to shady unfamiliar websites, and you're at least half aware of sensible computer use, password and login use.
    - diminoten 8y ago
      This is hubris incarnate, the seatbelt argument all over again.
      - exodust 8y ago
        Poor analogy, and typical of the deferred-update paranoia crowd, thinking the worst and feeling exposed because Microsoft says you are in "critical danger". A better analogy: You should keep your bicycle helmet on in the shower due to the slippery tiles and statistics of shower-related head injuries. Or this... Believe it or not, when you leave home without your umbrella, it may not rain. You know this, but you take your umbrella anyway. I choose not to.
        diminoten 8y ago
        The analogy was more than apt: a car crash is devastating, as is losing your identity, it's more likely than people tend to think, and the cost of protecting yourself against this devastating thing is relatively low. If anything, the umbrella analogy wasn't great, because getting wet is a consequence of forgetting your umbrella, and that's far from as devastating as having your identity stolen. Further, you getting wet doesn't create a negative network effect like having your computer hacked does by adding your computer to a nefarious botnet. This isn't Reddit, you can agree that the comparison was solid, but that the conclusion was still wrong. No need to go into Internet argument mode; we can have a discussion. For example, your helmet analogy in the bathtub is a decent one, except for the fact that it costs way more than running an update does to keep you safe. Are you critically vulnerable all the time? No. Are you better equipped than Microsoft to judge which updates are important and which aren't? No. It's, as I said, the definition of hubris to think otherwise. If you don't like how Windows does updates, don't use Windows -- lots of other great options. Besides, the cost is absurdly low to keep yourself safe. If you're making the choice to run an un-updated Windows machine that's connected to the Internet, you are driving without a seatbelt, and not only are you literally risking your own livelihood, but you're also putting others at risk.
kurtisc 8y ago
Are they security patches, though? The difference between a critical safety update and the update that adds new things to Candy Crush is imperceptible to the casual user who just wants to get work done and will foster an unfair distrust of the important need for these updates. Additionally, the implementation is frustrating and buggy. If someone updated OpenSSL from an insecure version on my machine, I'd probably never notice.
- diminoten 8y ago
  I hear you, but your claim that Windows Update is "frustrating and buggy" just doesn't mesh with my experience, so it's hard to relate to your concern. I don't think I've ever noticed Windows update running, except for the once-a-month or so times I've come back to my computer and it's been restarted. Hardly "buggy" or "frustrating". Admittedly I don't think all Microsoft updates that get pushed out are security patches, but there are a lot of configuration options that give me control of how and when updates get applied. I find it hard to understand what the situation is that these controls aren't enough to work around any potential "critical" timeframe I might have. Besides, for important stuff that must be up all the time, everyone knows by now that *nix is the way to go, right? This is not anywhere remotely new. Running Windows is implicitly trading off 100% availability for... whatever else Windows offers (gaming compatibility, for me).
  - kurtisc 8y ago
    My frustration with a personal PC is just turning one on the morning after doing updates and having to wait an hour before I could go back to work. For silly reasons, though, I've had to update a lot of OEM Windows Home installations to new. Something like Ubuntu would have been better if starting from scratch but there was a lot of work to move the codebase to that once Windows stopped being something you could trust to turn on when you wanted it to turn on and turn off when you wanted it to turn off. Anyway, this led to days of non-deterministic updating where sometimes it would fail to find the new updates until after I left, sometimes it would fail to install an update, and sometimes it would boot-loop. But always it would take longer than installing a new Linux distribution from scratch. Now this is all anecdotal but even an installation-and-update cycle that goes well takes too long - seemingly because Windows has now mixed the worst DRM implications of SaaS and proprietary SaaP for most of its genuine customers. When I see people talking about how updates can be made to work as one would expect them to work with just a few steps (which seem to change following every major release), I'm reminded of playing with shakier Linux and FreeBSD desktop distributions as a teen. Now Ubuntu is the OS that 'just works'. My frustration about this largely comes from any complaints about the implementation being lumped in the 'ignore' bin with the Luddites who don't care about the security at all. My very proprietary Chromebook updates painlessly.