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I have two pet theories on why this subject comes up as much as it does on HN. 1. Windows Updates were a known quantity for years. Patch Tuesday and so on. Now

by smush 8y ago

I have two pet theories on why this subject comes up as much as it does on HN. 1. Windows Updates were a known quantity for years. Patch Tuesday and so on. Now there are various short-lived concepts like CB, CBB, LTSB, SAC, LTSC, Active Hours - it's almost as if some middle manager MBA who recently graduated said to themselves "how much technical jargon can we throw at 'em?" To what end? I'm not sure. The tin foil hat crowd (which I've been somewhat forced to join) would say that 1. dovetails into 2. 2. Increasing disrespect for the users, which many of we on HN see and hate (see rest of this paragraph), and the vast majority don't see. Privacy invasions which cannot be stopped (minus 'hacks') a la quartering of the kings solders, settings reverting themselves in willful violation of the user's express wishes, and the biggest insult of all, denial of user-control over updates, a feature that has been with Windows for decades. Update control being yanked away from the users, in addition to the telemetry and setting reverting themselves are viewed by many as Microsoft machinations aimed at turning the users into the used.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
3. Many people here have company provided Windows PCs that have software on them that forces you to restart for updates far more regularly than Windows itself.
gruez 8y ago
>Now there are various short-lived concepts like CB, CBB, LTSB, SAC, LTSC, Active Hours - it's almost as if some middle manager MBA who recently graduated said to themselves "how much technical jargon can we throw at 'em?" Controls how often/whether you get feature updates. They're not applicable to home users as they only have access to CB. >Active Hours Controls when your computer will auto-reboot what's so confusing about this again?
- smush 8y ago
  Jargon is jargon - to those who know it, it's easy to remember. To those who don't? It might as well be Konami Codes. Hard for us, who are familiar with this jargon? Not a chance, to your point. To the dad who opens IE, types Google.com into the bing bar, clicks the google.com link, then types his internet search - those words might as well be Elian script.
- noxToken 8y ago
  >Controls when your computer will auto-reboot >what's so hard about this? It's not hard. It's that I am out of control of when my PC gets to reboot. It is a small inconvenience, but it should be something I don't have to put up with at all. I've had file updates cut short over "inactive" reboots. 10+ GB downloads that I was hoping to use the following day that never finished due to a restart.
worble 8y ago
Number 2 really hits the nail on the head. I don't get annoyed when Steam updates and wants to restart. I don't get annoyed when Firefox updates and wants to restart. I don't get annoyed when I have to (rarely) restart my linux machines. Why? Because I have a fairly large degree of certainty that the updates for these are either going to be beneifial for me, or at worst won't screw me over. For Windows, which has done nothing but show disdain towards it's own users, seeing an update causes me nothing but fustration and anxiety (the same goes for Nvidia drivers too). Also, add the fact that nearly all of these install their updates in the background, and that their restart is actually just a standard restart that will take no longer than a usual cold boot helps a lot, when compared to Microsofts "applying updates screen" where you never know if you're going to be there 5 minutes or over an hour. It's just a terrible situation every time it occurs when others have shown that it really doesn't need to be.
- Jach 8y ago
  > I don't get annoyed when Firefox updates and wants to restart. This was true for me until recently on my work machine I went to open a new tab and Firefox forbade it until I restarted for updates. Can do whatever I want with the other tabs, but can't make a new tab. Multiprocess blah blah, it didn't used to be this way. Every tech organization successfully wages war on its own users from time to time and will disappoint you sooner or later. But yeah, respect for users. Many kinds of malware treat your machine with more respect than Microsoft does.
WorldMaker 8y ago
> Windows Updates were a known quantity for years. Patch Tuesday and so on. Now there are various short-lived concepts like CB, CBB, LTSB, SAC, LTSC, Active Hours Patch Tuesday is still Patch Tuesday. New patches come out on the same Tuesday every month that it has just about always been that Microsoft implores everyone to install ASAP. (It's always been posted as "ASAP". That's not a recent change in all this.) The big change is that Microsoft doesn't want to any longer accept "We'll get to it when we get to it" as an answer to "ASAP", and most of the alphabet soup is just variations on what and when "ASAP" is allowed to mean. (But again, the change here isn't that Patch Tuesday means "install these things ASAP", that's always been the messaging on Patch Tuesday. A lot of people just felt entitled to ignore that for as much as years in some cases.)
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  > But again, the change here isn't that Patch Tuesday means "install these things ASAP", that's always been the messaging on Patch Tuesday. A lot of people just felt entitled to ignore that for as much as years in some cases. Yeah, those damned users and their feeling of entitlement towards being able to control a thing they bought. Idiots.
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    Don't you just hate it when your OS vendor cares about herd immunity and user/application security? Such a terrible thing for them to worry about. It's a good thing our devices are so rarely if ever networked together in 2019.~
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      Yes, I hate it when companies treat me like cattle. You like being treated like cattle?

by smush 8y ago

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

3. Many people here have company provided Windows PCs that have software on them that forces you to restart for updates far more regularly than Windows itself.

gruez 8y ago

>Now there are various short-lived concepts like CB, CBB, LTSB, SAC, LTSC, Active Hours - it's almost as if some middle manager MBA who recently graduated said to themselves "how much technical jargon can we throw at 'em?" Controls how often/whether you get feature updates. They're not applicable to home users as they only have access to CB. >Active Hours Controls when your computer will auto-reboot what's so confusing about this again?

smush 8y ago
Jargon is jargon - to those who know it, it's easy to remember. To those who don't? It might as well be Konami Codes. Hard for us, who are familiar with this jargon? Not a chance, to your point. To the dad who opens IE, types Google.com into the bing bar, clicks the google.com link, then types his internet search - those words might as well be Elian script.
noxToken 8y ago
>Controls when your computer will auto-reboot >what's so hard about this? It's not hard. It's that I am out of control of when my PC gets to reboot. It is a small inconvenience, but it should be something I don't have to put up with at all. I've had file updates cut short over "inactive" reboots. 10+ GB downloads that I was hoping to use the following day that never finished due to a restart.

worble 8y ago

Number 2 really hits the nail on the head. I don't get annoyed when Steam updates and wants to restart. I don't get annoyed when Firefox updates and wants to restart. I don't get annoyed when I have to (rarely) restart my linux machines. Why? Because I have a fairly large degree of certainty that the updates for these are either going to be beneifial for me, or at worst won't screw me over. For Windows, which has done nothing but show disdain towards it's own users, seeing an update causes me nothing but fustration and anxiety (the same goes for Nvidia drivers too). Also, add the fact that nearly all of these install their updates in the background, and that their restart is actually just a standard restart that will take no longer than a usual cold boot helps a lot, when compared to Microsofts "applying updates screen" where you never know if you're going to be there 5 minutes or over an hour. It's just a terrible situation every time it occurs when others have shown that it really doesn't need to be.

Jach 8y ago
> I don't get annoyed when Firefox updates and wants to restart. This was true for me until recently on my work machine I went to open a new tab and Firefox forbade it until I restarted for updates. Can do whatever I want with the other tabs, but can't make a new tab. Multiprocess blah blah, it didn't used to be this way. Every tech organization successfully wages war on its own users from time to time and will disappoint you sooner or later. But yeah, respect for users. Many kinds of malware treat your machine with more respect than Microsoft does.

WorldMaker 8y ago

> Windows Updates were a known quantity for years. Patch Tuesday and so on. Now there are various short-lived concepts like CB, CBB, LTSB, SAC, LTSC, Active Hours Patch Tuesday is still Patch Tuesday. New patches come out on the same Tuesday every month that it has just about always been that Microsoft implores everyone to install ASAP. (It's always been posted as "ASAP". That's not a recent change in all this.) The big change is that Microsoft doesn't want to any longer accept "We'll get to it when we get to it" as an answer to "ASAP", and most of the alphabet soup is just variations on what and when "ASAP" is allowed to mean. (But again, the change here isn't that Patch Tuesday means "install these things ASAP", that's always been the messaging on Patch Tuesday. A lot of people just felt entitled to ignore that for as much as years in some cases.)

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
> But again, the change here isn't that Patch Tuesday means "install these things ASAP", that's always been the messaging on Patch Tuesday. A lot of people just felt entitled to ignore that for as much as years in some cases. Yeah, those damned users and their feeling of entitlement towards being able to control a thing they bought. Idiots.
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  Don't you just hate it when your OS vendor cares about herd immunity and user/application security? Such a terrible thing for them to worry about. It's a good thing our devices are so rarely if ever networked together in 2019.~
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    Yes, I hate it when companies treat me like cattle. You like being treated like cattle?