10 ms·

To start with I am super unhappy with the content and execution of recent windows updates. Its not okay to keep resetting my preferences and it's not okay to ri

by sisu2019 8y ago

To start with I am super unhappy with the content and execution of recent windows updates. Its not okay to keep resetting my preferences and it's not okay to rip out control dialogs that worked very well the past decade with some demented metro app (rip display and sound device setting). But I have not had a single unexpected reboot on my win10 install. It's because I always update at the next time of convinience. Updating is required maintenance of any software system and you can't afford to ignore it. I also see some consequences of questionable behavior blamed on windows. You should never have hours worth of unsaved work open. NEVER. Don't blame windows or whatever, just dont ever do that or at least bear your shame quietly. Also, please for the love of god, stop lobbying for OSes to faithfully restore your open apps on reboot. The only way to solve a lot of problems is to be able to really reset the state of everything which is not worth trading for your ability to better compulisvely hoard chrome tabs. That shit is not healthy btw. Finally, reboots are necessary on all major operating systems, even linux. Remember Windows user used to be free to apply updates when they wanted but you, yes you, MS hater of yesteryear kept blaming MS for the large number of unpatched and therefore insecure Windows systems. So they don't give users the freedom to postpone indefinitely and of course it's also not right. So what can they do?

Zanni 8y ago
It's less unsaved work (that would be madness), but unsaved context. The physical arrangement of windows and browser tabs and file locations is significant, and losing it all to a reboot (intentional or otherwise) destroys that context. Want users to reboot more often and on your timetable? Preserve and restore context.
- vic20forever 8y ago
  Meanwhile, in a smoky apartment on the bad side of town[1]: Warning: this hard locked my MBP. [snip] It was a pain in the ass to recover: my only option seemed to be to power down and power back up again, at which point OSX helpfully remembered the state my machine was in and dropped me back into the blacked-out display and maxed fan. Some combination of NVRAM reset, SPC reset and safe mode was required to get back in. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19265107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19265107
  - Spivak 8y ago
    I think macOS has the saner default but Windows has the better experience. The default should be to save state and give you the option for a hard reset should you really need it. Apple gets it wrong by not exposing the various types of resets anywhere in the UI and instead requiring users to memorize a series of keyboard incantations on boot.
- TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
  .
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    Windows 10 does that for me as well...isn't that the whole point of the Timeline feature?
ClassyJacket 8y ago
"Also, please for the love of god, stop lobbying for OSes to faithfully restore your open apps on reboot. The only way to solve a lot of problems is to be able to really reset the state of everything"... I'm not lobbying for that, but I am lobbying for a proper hibernate feature (like Windows 7 had). Windows 10 has it, but it's hidden for some reason. Ubuntu had some version of it at some point, but it's disabled now and very hard to reenable and very unreliable. Unfortunately restoring everything takes up a huge chunk of my work time. Reboot should still be a separate option.
chris_wot 8y ago
Gee, you wouldn’t want to be computing a long running calculation or - horror of horrors! - an hours long compilation.
- sisu2019 8y ago
  well maybe dont press later later later ten times in a row before you embark in finally calculating the 1 billionth digit of pi
- cptskippy 8y ago
  I would argue that if your builds take more than 18 hours to complete then you should be running them on a build server which allows you to disable updates.
  - p2t2p 8y ago
    What about long rendering? Every student and/or indie artist now need a very personal cluster?
    - cptskippy 8y ago
      Those are legitimate use cases and I could probably argue away the Student one. I don't know how much has changed since I was in school but in the late 90s and early 2000s upgrading people's computers to Windows Workstation/2000 was the way to go. I can see with campuses having access to Dreamspark, kids just installing Enterprise or Server. When my cousin was attending Ringling back in the early 2000s everyone needed Workstation or 2000 to run Renderman and they had setup the Renderman nodes on all of their personal workstations so that when anyone of them had a big job to render they could have the whole farm do it.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    Or, and here's a crazy thought, why not treat your paying customers like people who have some idea what they're doing instead of cattle?
jen729w 8y ago
> The only way to solve a lot of problems is to be able to really reset the state of everything which is not worth trading for your ability to better compulisvely hoard chrome tabs. WTF problems is the system creating that require it to blindly reset the state of everything? I get “we have detected a problem that may be resolved by us forgetting your Chrome tabs”, but doing it by default, just in case? Not acceptable in 2019. This is the sort of behaviour that makes people hate their computers.
- sisu2019 8y ago
  you can scream not acceptable and stomp your feed all you want but when for instance your 3d accelerated chrome tab triggers some rare gpu bug you will be happy that simply pressing reset fixed it, for you, for now anyways. End users shouldnt have to do root cause analysis. Everyone that has any experience with computers had something like this happen many times. Bugs are a fact of life, it's your choice to have temper trandrum about it. Also if you "hate" one of the greatest inventions of all times you should check expectations a bit.
  - apostacy 8y ago
    This attitude might have some validity if updates were of higher quality, and they could be rolled back at will. But the truth is, these days, updates are rolling the dice with your computer. Major features are removed, and new bugs introduced. Not just with Windows 10, but with other software like Chrome. Why not allow updates to be rolled back? Surely, if updates were so desirable, then nobody would want to undo them. It is because it would be admitting that some people might not want updates, among other reasons. And so we live in a world where we can no longer rely on our computers. A setup that worked perfectly for you yesterday might be completely different when you wake up. Some bugs get fixed, new ones are introduced, except that I don't know what they are. It creates a kind of learned helplessness with computers.
    - sisu2019 8y ago
      I actually agree with and share a lot of your concerns and Win10 is really bad in this regard. A few patches back all my printers stopped working and so instead of preparing items to ship I had to spend my monday morning fixing that issue for no good reason. I was livid! But the content of patches is a seperate issue from the one of forced reboots. I think the reason MS and other Vendors want only one version of their software out in the wild is because otherwise patching becomes a complexity nightmare.
tenebrisalietum 8y ago
> You should never have hours worth of unsaved work open. NEVER. Don't blame windows or whatever, just dont ever do that or at least bear your shame quietly. I think this might be the result of laypeople bringing phone OS expectations over to a desktop OS. For many phone apps you never have to worry about saving or closing them and there is little difference between opening an app that wasn't open before and resuming one that's not been on your screen for a while.
- Jare 8y ago
  Same goes for web apps, you are editing a google sheet and never worry about saving it. However, there are forms of work that are a mess when they are interrupted. Long rendering jobs for example.
  - vbezhenar 8y ago
    Web sites don’t do that by default. I would say, they are losing unsaved data by default and very few save it seamlessly.
morningmoon 8y ago
I’ve never had to reboot my MacBook in the last 3 years. I’ve rebooted maybe twice in 6 years (to install a major new OS version). The need for rebooting is a design flaw, as is the need to manually save work.
- sisu2019 8y ago
  then you are not patched and you are probably exposed to severe security risks. You could do this on windows ten years ago but it didn't go well for MS
  - morningmoon 8y ago
    Yeah you’re right. In my defense.. Risk of being rooted before security update: unknown, possible. Risk of being rooted after security update: unknown, possible. Meh.
  - exodust 8y ago
    "Not being patched" doesn't mean a sinister fate awaits. Not all unpatched instances are critical. A lot of variables need to be in place before many of these "unpatched risks" are significantly risky. Not leaving the house is a good survival tactic against the threat of being hit by bus. That's your argument? Giving me option to perform updates whenever the hell I want, is a reasonable option we once had, it's been taken away... the hand of God reaches down and rips it out of your hands. Please stop advocating that our choices be removed. Even something like a browser status bar was ripped out, first in Chrome, then FF. Not even an advanced choice to have it back. I prefer choice and control, I don't want a new mummy or daddy in form of tech giant or publishing and advertising giant or software vendor telling me how it is, or what I need.
- deergomoo 8y ago
  Most macOS point updates require a reboot so you must be running an unpatched OS a lot of the time.
- thisacctforreal 8y ago
  I've found rebooting on mac pretty painless regardless.
JoshuaJB 8y ago
> Finally, reboots are necessary on all major operating systems, even linux... Sure, but there's the question of regularity. For the most part, I can do live updates of every part of my linux system (including the kernel if livepatch is enabled). I only have to reboot if there's something like a major change to the init system. This leaves my server with the latest bits and no downtime in the past 5 months. On the other hand, my Windows machine tries to reboot at least monthly - and that's less often than I'm sure Microsoft would like.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  Is it fair to compare your Linux Server to your Windows Desktop? My Windows Server has 4 options for handling updates: 1) Automatically install and schedule a reboot. 2) Download but let me choose to install. 3) Tell me there's updates but let me choose to download and install. 4) Don't check for updates.
  - Lorkki 8y ago
    Nothing he described is in any way limited to servers. Even kernel live patching is available to Ubuntu desktop users for free: https://www.ubuntu.com/livepatch https://www.ubuntu.com/livepatch
    - cptskippy 8y ago
      And if Linux on the Desktop met his needs then he wouldn't be running Windows Desktop. My point is that Windows Desktop is not Windows Server so if you're going to compare a Linux Server to Windows, then you should compare it to the equivalent Server variant.
      - pessimizer 8y ago
        > if you're going to compare a Linux Server to Windows Lorkki's point was that this was not a thing that happened in the comment you replied to. Linux servers and desktops operate in the same way. The laptop I'm typing this on has 3 months uptime.
unethical_ban 8y ago
It is my computer - I should get to override any setting, including automatic reboots and updates. Never before have I been so directly prevented from running networked services on my personal computer as Windows 10 has done. Gaming? Media? <name your normal service hosting anyone would want to do>? Nope. Rebooted.
- sisu2019 8y ago
  sure so if you had an unpatched windows spreading malware you would, of course, spring for all of the damages and take all the blame for yourself, right? And you would also write to every publication that would use this hypothetical situation to unfairly bad mouth windows security to demand a correction, right? MS tried it, users didnt do it, they got blamed so now it's mandatory. Natural progression.
  - unethical_ban 8y ago
    In the case of the Internet, if you catch malware, that's your own damned fault. I know what you're saying, and I hear you on the Windows getting blamed front, but if they can't do security patches without changing UI and restarting constantly, against user will, then it's no deal.
jakub_g 8y ago
In my previous corpo, we had some third-party software that would show an (unkillable) ticking clock counting hours to the forced maintenance reboot (starting at 12 hrs) when the admin has scheduled the updates installation. Predictable and much better than not saying anything, and silently rebooting when I go to get a tea with 10 apps opened.
- cptskippy 8y ago
  > Predictable and much better than not saying anything, and silently rebooting when I go to get a tea with 10 apps opened. According to the process flow diagram in the article, that won't happen unless you were working outside of your Active Hours and left your computer unattended for more than 15 minutes. The Active Hours window can be an 18 hour window.
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    Must suck for those times you need to do 24 hours of work, huh?
    - sisu2019 8y ago
      this reminds me of those kinds of discussions with teenagers where every ridiculous escalation of hypotheticals comes with a triumphant "ah ah, HA why should I do my homework at all beleaguered on all sides by paper eating dogs as I am". You don't work 24h and if you do, you shouldn't. If you still do well then make sure to check updates before your "shift"
      - jobigoud 8y ago
        I don't work 24 hours but my computer often work while I sleep.
        cptskippy 8y ago
        That sounds like a job for a Server...
foolofatom 8y ago
I felt deja vu while reading this post.
etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
I don't like this attitude. It seems to blame the user for everything rather than striving to make the technology better and more seamless.
- sisu2019 8y ago
  I don't like how people have a fixed capacity for discontent. Everything is so amazing and yet people get really upset over the smallest things but are not willing to do anything to mitigate the effects they don't like. Okay it's too much to ask to just apply updates when they come. It's too much to ask to set a time when these reboots could happen. It's too much to ask to just press CTRL+S every once in a while. I wonder what will be too much to ask next ... Btw it's not hard to see that MS is working on making windows better even if it's hit and miss at the moment. Forcing reboots /is/ exactly that progress when it comes to windows security and I think it's quite unfair to not acknowledge the history that led to this.
  - etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
    Some people have different work habits. Some people do critical work that can't be delayed. This OS behavior wouldn't be acceptable in a computer running in a surgery office or a nuclear control room. The problem is the OS is limiting its acceptable use cases to where the work isn't terribly important and can be interrupted without warning. This is a technology problem with a technological solution. These users would be wise to choose an OS that won't fail this way.
    - sisu2019 8y ago
      well of course everyone knows that all the smart uninterruptible rocket surgeons use linux nudge wink. It's okay to not target every possible group under the sun. And to be honest windows is getting a bit too dumbed down even for me And that's what stings, I guess. For all the things they do wrong, they get the most shit for one of the few things they got right. Everyman user will delay updates forever so they must be forced to apply them.
    - 8y ago
Jach 8y ago
Linux has at least 3 methods to hot swap the kernel to a new version. Rebooting is convenient but with some effort entirely optional.
- trulyrandom 8y ago
  Interesting. I only know about kexec. What are some other examples?
  - Jach 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kexec#See%20Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kexec#See%20Also I always forget about the oracle one. They along with pure kexec all have their tradeoffs.
    - trulyrandom 8y ago
      Ah, right. Those allow applying small patches to a running kernel, but don't do a full kernel swap.
emsy 8y ago
An unpatched exploit is independent from applying an update. Serious exploits should be patched asap because they may endanger critical infrastructure. But I as the system administrator should be able to make the informed decision not to apply the update for my own reasons. Even windows 10 PROFESSIONAL doesn't allow this. It's a huge screwup on MS part.
type0 8y ago
> You should never have hours worth of unsaved work open. NEVER. How about running long compilations, video decoding, etc Seems to me that Windows is unsuitable for real work.
- sisu2019 8y ago
  how about you do pending updates and set your work time? I think planning is still allowed for real work yes? This is why I don't believe that all these complaints come from super productive future steven spielberg level content producers because people like that wouldn't even need to think about planning around such an utter triviality.
  - asdffdsa 8y ago
    quite tragic how the only thing holding back untold numbers of academy-award caliber filmmakers are configurable Windows updates
  - mrpigeonpants 8y ago
    What if I'm about to go to a concert, running late and I need to print tickets last minute, and suddenly windows needs to spend 30 minutes updating, without giving me a choice? The fact that you can't stop it in the moment is infuriating. Also, you can't expect the user to manually configure system updates.
    - sisu2019 8y ago
      what if on your way to the concert your car breaks down because you kept putting of the required maintenance for months and months? This is exactly analog to your example. "Car users can't be expected to initiate an oil change at their convinience". Oh please.
      - mrpigeonpants 8y ago
        My computer wouldn't break down without updates. I previously had windows 7 for years and never updated. And had consecutive months of uptime. You don't get it.
thatoneuser 8y ago
My chrome tabs restore just fine, thank you. I'm more about walking away from my workstation for an hour only to come back and spend 15 minutes opening up my terminals and other programs so I can get back to work. 15 minutes down every 2-3 days isn't negligible. If they need to update every other day then so be it, but do it without offloading the work of what should be modern OS functionality onto end users who now have to clean up your mess.
- ragesh 8y ago
  Every 2 to 3 days? My Windows 10 machines need an update maybe once a month.
kakarot 8y ago
Well I'm glad no one is hiring you to design user interfaces. Applications work for the user, not the developer. Applications are designed around business logic and customer demands, not how lazy the developer is. If Firefox saves my tabs on exit then I fully fucking expect my tabs to be there next time I open it up, regardless of my OS state. > MS hater of yesteryear kept blaming MS for the large number of unpatched and therefore insecure Windows systems This logic means that when W7 is up, I'm a bad person for not just upgrading to W10 despite it offering a completely different experience and despite the fact that I owe MS no brand loyalty.
- sisu2019 8y ago
  > I fully fucking expect my tabs to be there next time I open it up, regardless of my OS stat that's pretty short sighted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19267411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19267411 That "Have you tried rebooting it?" is a thing at all is pretty bad but it's going to be so much worse when apps and OSes interact in a way that prevents clean reboot.
  - kakarot 8y ago
    I'm trying to figure out what someone's macbook being stuck in a bad state and needing an SPC and NVRAM reset has to do with this conversation. That happens all the time on macbooks. It also has no effect on whether FF's tabs come up next time. And if FF closes suddenly, you have a chance to discard your open tabs on start. Explain to me how my statement is shortsighted again?
    - sisu2019 8y ago
      sorry, I meant to post this link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19268201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19268201
      - kakarot 8y ago
        Sounds like an issue with Chrome, then. The OS handles its own state. That should be invisible to applications. Applications handle their own state. That should be invisible to the OS. As I said, Firefox offers a choice to restore or discard tabs after a bad start or shutdown of the program. If Chrome doesn't have good fail-safe mechanisms, I'm confused about what that has to do with Microsoft and what it has to do with me being shortsighted.
age_bronze 8y ago
I call bullshit. This crap can and will happen in unfortunate times such as opening a laptop for presentation, also note that shutting down a computer with lowish battery with update pending is a death sentence until you reach a charger, because you'll never make it past the stupid update. Just when you need it the most and it has the lowest battery this crap will pop. Minewhile some computers are stuck in update loop of failing to update, reverting, and retrying every god damn day again like anything will change. If you're too bad at ensuring updates work, dont force them down my throat the 100th time expecting something will change. I already accepted the fact your trash update will never work so can you please stop wasting my time?
gerdesj 8y ago
Finally, reboots are necessary on all major operating systems, even linux. Linux has a handy app called "needrestart". After you've updated it checks what needs restarting and offers to do it. If the kernel is updated then it will tell you to reboot. Some distros have live kernel patching which is as nutty as it sounds but seems to work. You only really have to reboot if the kernel is upgraded but to be honest, its a good idea to put in a reboot on a regular basis anyway and design your systems with some sort of redundancy to cope. In my experience, only Gentoo (and derivatives and the like) can take longer than Windows for updating. Bear in mind they compile packages from source code. Getting a LibreOffice and Firefox and a Window Manager (say Gnome or KDE) update at the same time is a recipe for a very hot lap.
creato 8y ago
> Also, please for the love of god, stop lobbying for OSes to faithfully restore your open apps on reboot. The only way to solve a lot of problems is to be able to really reset the state of everything which is not worth trading for your ability to better compulisvely hoard chrome tabs. Funny enough, someone just posted in the GPU.js thread about how it hard locked his machine, and because the OS restored chrome and chrome restored his tabs after rebooting, he was forced to take extra measures to recover: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=19265107&goto=item%3Fid%3D19264154%2319265107 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=19265107&goto=item%3Fi...
- sisu2019 8y ago
  perfect example, thank you!
- muthdra 8y ago
  Very legal and very cool.
mcny 8y ago
» Finally, reboots are necessary on all major operating systems, even linux. Remember Windows user used to be free to apply updates when they wanted but you, yes you, MS hater of yesteryear kept blaming MS for the large number of unpatched and therefore insecure Windows systems. So they don't give users the freedom to postpone indefinitely and of course it's also not right. So what can they do? 1. The easy stuff. Show a bright red warning that covers 10%, 20%, and progressively 50% of the primary display asking user to reboot at the next opportunity. However, don't reboot automatically unless the user opts into such behavior. 2. The hard stuff Take a hard look into what update requires reboot. Strip everything and hide almost all (I'm assuming we will need a kernel) those things from Windows home but keep them available using Windows features for a few years. Enterprise users might need backward compatibility but I think there is a lot of room to simplify Windows for the home.
finchisko 8y ago
I don't agree on a single point of you. You are preferring system over user. IMO, user should always have a choice to make final decision. Don't you want to restart or event download updates? You maybe like viruses or whatever reason, made you do so. Fine I don't care, it was your decision, and I (system) will respect that. I can only warn you, that your system might be at a risk. > You should never have hours worth of unsaved work open. NEVER. This is stupid either. I can have unsaved work. It's risky, but again it was my choice. Previous Windows, which didn't restart willy nilly, didn't suffer with this problem as much as W10. So this is definitely regression in UX.
finchisko 8y ago
Also the whole thing about the Windows restart after update is due Windows still has this stupid file locking mechanism, which prevents overwriting file when in use. It's the only mainstream system, which still has that. In macOS or Linux (specially Linux), I barely need to restart OS after updates.
Xelbair 8y ago
>Finally, reboots are necessary on all major operating systems, even linux. Yeah,no. Even windows 10 dosen't require you to reboot it often - the machine i am writing from wasn't rebooted in two months(i update it when it is convenient for me, and when i am sure that update is 'safe' to install - updates that delete your files would be better left to another discussion) - it is usually running few spatial analyses nightly. >You should never have hours worth of unsaved work open. NEVER. Don't blame windows or whatever, just dont ever do that or at least bear your shame quietly. It isn't about having the work open, it is about system dictating WHEN you need to stop working and bloody update it. We had a business presentation and our presentation laptop was running windows10 home - guess what happened? Obviously you can delay update, or even prevent them for a while - but the prompt(which allows delaying by up to 15minutes, blocking updates takes place in control panel if i recall right) didn't show while presentation was in fullscreen - and the update took 1.5 hours. Updating at reboot is fine, but users must have an option to NOT update at the next reboot(even if it is annoying as hell for user) - sometimes it is necessary - and remember that software serves the users, not the other way around. I agree that restoring open apps on reboot is a horrible practice in general, but when updating the OS without any user interaction - it is a must if you cannot update without rebooting the OS. What people are angry about isn't the idea that windows closes everything, or updates itself, but that they aren't in control of their computers.

Zanni 8y ago

It's less unsaved work (that would be madness), but unsaved context. The physical arrangement of windows and browser tabs and file locations is significant, and losing it all to a reboot (intentional or otherwise) destroys that context. Want users to reboot more often and on your timetable? Preserve and restore context.

vic20forever 8y ago
Meanwhile, in a smoky apartment on the bad side of town[1]: Warning: this hard locked my MBP. [snip] It was a pain in the ass to recover: my only option seemed to be to power down and power back up again, at which point OSX helpfully remembered the state my machine was in and dropped me back into the blacked-out display and maxed fan. Some combination of NVRAM reset, SPC reset and safe mode was required to get back in. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19265107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19265107
- Spivak 8y ago
  I think macOS has the saner default but Windows has the better experience. The default should be to save state and give you the option for a hard reset should you really need it. Apple gets it wrong by not exposing the various types of resets anywhere in the UI and instead requiring users to memorize a series of keyboard incantations on boot.
TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
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- gamblor956 8y ago
  Windows 10 does that for me as well...isn't that the whole point of the Timeline feature?

ClassyJacket 8y ago

"Also, please for the love of god, stop lobbying for OSes to faithfully restore your open apps on reboot. The only way to solve a lot of problems is to be able to really reset the state of everything"... I'm not lobbying for that, but I am lobbying for a proper hibernate feature (like Windows 7 had). Windows 10 has it, but it's hidden for some reason. Ubuntu had some version of it at some point, but it's disabled now and very hard to reenable and very unreliable. Unfortunately restoring everything takes up a huge chunk of my work time. Reboot should still be a separate option.

chris_wot 8y ago

Gee, you wouldn’t want to be computing a long running calculation or - horror of horrors! - an hours long compilation.

sisu2019 8y ago
well maybe dont press later later later ten times in a row before you embark in finally calculating the 1 billionth digit of pi
cptskippy 8y ago
I would argue that if your builds take more than 18 hours to complete then you should be running them on a build server which allows you to disable updates.
- p2t2p 8y ago
  What about long rendering? Every student and/or indie artist now need a very personal cluster?
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    Those are legitimate use cases and I could probably argue away the Student one. I don't know how much has changed since I was in school but in the late 90s and early 2000s upgrading people's computers to Windows Workstation/2000 was the way to go. I can see with campuses having access to Dreamspark, kids just installing Enterprise or Server. When my cousin was attending Ringling back in the early 2000s everyone needed Workstation or 2000 to run Renderman and they had setup the Renderman nodes on all of their personal workstations so that when anyone of them had a big job to render they could have the whole farm do it.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  Or, and here's a crazy thought, why not treat your paying customers like people who have some idea what they're doing instead of cattle?

jen729w 8y ago

> The only way to solve a lot of problems is to be able to really reset the state of everything which is not worth trading for your ability to better compulisvely hoard chrome tabs. WTF problems is the system creating that require it to blindly reset the state of everything? I get “we have detected a problem that may be resolved by us forgetting your Chrome tabs”, but doing it by default, just in case? Not acceptable in 2019. This is the sort of behaviour that makes people hate their computers.

sisu2019 8y ago
you can scream not acceptable and stomp your feed all you want but when for instance your 3d accelerated chrome tab triggers some rare gpu bug you will be happy that simply pressing reset fixed it, for you, for now anyways. End users shouldnt have to do root cause analysis. Everyone that has any experience with computers had something like this happen many times. Bugs are a fact of life, it's your choice to have temper trandrum about it. Also if you "hate" one of the greatest inventions of all times you should check expectations a bit.
- apostacy 8y ago
  This attitude might have some validity if updates were of higher quality, and they could be rolled back at will. But the truth is, these days, updates are rolling the dice with your computer. Major features are removed, and new bugs introduced. Not just with Windows 10, but with other software like Chrome. Why not allow updates to be rolled back? Surely, if updates were so desirable, then nobody would want to undo them. It is because it would be admitting that some people might not want updates, among other reasons. And so we live in a world where we can no longer rely on our computers. A setup that worked perfectly for you yesterday might be completely different when you wake up. Some bugs get fixed, new ones are introduced, except that I don't know what they are. It creates a kind of learned helplessness with computers.
  - sisu2019 8y ago
    I actually agree with and share a lot of your concerns and Win10 is really bad in this regard. A few patches back all my printers stopped working and so instead of preparing items to ship I had to spend my monday morning fixing that issue for no good reason. I was livid! But the content of patches is a seperate issue from the one of forced reboots. I think the reason MS and other Vendors want only one version of their software out in the wild is because otherwise patching becomes a complexity nightmare.

tenebrisalietum 8y ago

> You should never have hours worth of unsaved work open. NEVER. Don't blame windows or whatever, just dont ever do that or at least bear your shame quietly. I think this might be the result of laypeople bringing phone OS expectations over to a desktop OS. For many phone apps you never have to worry about saving or closing them and there is little difference between opening an app that wasn't open before and resuming one that's not been on your screen for a while.

Jare 8y ago
Same goes for web apps, you are editing a google sheet and never worry about saving it. However, there are forms of work that are a mess when they are interrupted. Long rendering jobs for example.
- vbezhenar 8y ago
  Web sites don’t do that by default. I would say, they are losing unsaved data by default and very few save it seamlessly.

morningmoon 8y ago

I’ve never had to reboot my MacBook in the last 3 years. I’ve rebooted maybe twice in 6 years (to install a major new OS version). The need for rebooting is a design flaw, as is the need to manually save work.

sisu2019 8y ago
then you are not patched and you are probably exposed to severe security risks. You could do this on windows ten years ago but it didn't go well for MS
- morningmoon 8y ago
  Yeah you’re right. In my defense.. Risk of being rooted before security update: unknown, possible. Risk of being rooted after security update: unknown, possible. Meh.
- exodust 8y ago
  "Not being patched" doesn't mean a sinister fate awaits. Not all unpatched instances are critical. A lot of variables need to be in place before many of these "unpatched risks" are significantly risky. Not leaving the house is a good survival tactic against the threat of being hit by bus. That's your argument? Giving me option to perform updates whenever the hell I want, is a reasonable option we once had, it's been taken away... the hand of God reaches down and rips it out of your hands. Please stop advocating that our choices be removed. Even something like a browser status bar was ripped out, first in Chrome, then FF. Not even an advanced choice to have it back. I prefer choice and control, I don't want a new mummy or daddy in form of tech giant or publishing and advertising giant or software vendor telling me how it is, or what I need.
deergomoo 8y ago
Most macOS point updates require a reboot so you must be running an unpatched OS a lot of the time.
thisacctforreal 8y ago
I've found rebooting on mac pretty painless regardless.

JoshuaJB 8y ago

> Finally, reboots are necessary on all major operating systems, even linux... Sure, but there's the question of regularity. For the most part, I can do live updates of every part of my linux system (including the kernel if livepatch is enabled). I only have to reboot if there's something like a major change to the init system. This leaves my server with the latest bits and no downtime in the past 5 months. On the other hand, my Windows machine tries to reboot at least monthly - and that's less often than I'm sure Microsoft would like.

cptskippy 8y ago
Is it fair to compare your Linux Server to your Windows Desktop? My Windows Server has 4 options for handling updates: 1) Automatically install and schedule a reboot. 2) Download but let me choose to install. 3) Tell me there's updates but let me choose to download and install. 4) Don't check for updates.
- Lorkki 8y ago
  Nothing he described is in any way limited to servers. Even kernel live patching is available to Ubuntu desktop users for free: https://www.ubuntu.com/livepatch https://www.ubuntu.com/livepatch
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    And if Linux on the Desktop met his needs then he wouldn't be running Windows Desktop. My point is that Windows Desktop is not Windows Server so if you're going to compare a Linux Server to Windows, then you should compare it to the equivalent Server variant.
    - pessimizer 8y ago
      > if you're going to compare a Linux Server to Windows Lorkki's point was that this was not a thing that happened in the comment you replied to. Linux servers and desktops operate in the same way. The laptop I'm typing this on has 3 months uptime.

unethical_ban 8y ago

It is my computer - I should get to override any setting, including automatic reboots and updates. Never before have I been so directly prevented from running networked services on my personal computer as Windows 10 has done. Gaming? Media? <name your normal service hosting anyone would want to do>? Nope. Rebooted.

sisu2019 8y ago
sure so if you had an unpatched windows spreading malware you would, of course, spring for all of the damages and take all the blame for yourself, right? And you would also write to every publication that would use this hypothetical situation to unfairly bad mouth windows security to demand a correction, right? MS tried it, users didnt do it, they got blamed so now it's mandatory. Natural progression.
- unethical_ban 8y ago
  In the case of the Internet, if you catch malware, that's your own damned fault. I know what you're saying, and I hear you on the Windows getting blamed front, but if they can't do security patches without changing UI and restarting constantly, against user will, then it's no deal.

jakub_g 8y ago

In my previous corpo, we had some third-party software that would show an (unkillable) ticking clock counting hours to the forced maintenance reboot (starting at 12 hrs) when the admin has scheduled the updates installation. Predictable and much better than not saying anything, and silently rebooting when I go to get a tea with 10 apps opened.

cptskippy 8y ago
> Predictable and much better than not saying anything, and silently rebooting when I go to get a tea with 10 apps opened. According to the process flow diagram in the article, that won't happen unless you were working outside of your Active Hours and left your computer unattended for more than 15 minutes. The Active Hours window can be an 18 hour window.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  Must suck for those times you need to do 24 hours of work, huh?
  - sisu2019 8y ago
    this reminds me of those kinds of discussions with teenagers where every ridiculous escalation of hypotheticals comes with a triumphant "ah ah, HA why should I do my homework at all beleaguered on all sides by paper eating dogs as I am". You don't work 24h and if you do, you shouldn't. If you still do well then make sure to check updates before your "shift"
    - jobigoud 8y ago
      I don't work 24 hours but my computer often work while I sleep.
      - cptskippy 8y ago
        That sounds like a job for a Server...

foolofatom 8y ago

I felt deja vu while reading this post.

etaioinshrdlu 8y ago

I don't like this attitude. It seems to blame the user for everything rather than striving to make the technology better and more seamless.

sisu2019 8y ago
I don't like how people have a fixed capacity for discontent. Everything is so amazing and yet people get really upset over the smallest things but are not willing to do anything to mitigate the effects they don't like. Okay it's too much to ask to just apply updates when they come. It's too much to ask to set a time when these reboots could happen. It's too much to ask to just press CTRL+S every once in a while. I wonder what will be too much to ask next ... Btw it's not hard to see that MS is working on making windows better even if it's hit and miss at the moment. Forcing reboots /is/ exactly that progress when it comes to windows security and I think it's quite unfair to not acknowledge the history that led to this.
- etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
  Some people have different work habits. Some people do critical work that can't be delayed. This OS behavior wouldn't be acceptable in a computer running in a surgery office or a nuclear control room. The problem is the OS is limiting its acceptable use cases to where the work isn't terribly important and can be interrupted without warning. This is a technology problem with a technological solution. These users would be wise to choose an OS that won't fail this way.
  - sisu2019 8y ago
    well of course everyone knows that all the smart uninterruptible rocket surgeons use linux nudge wink. It's okay to not target every possible group under the sun. And to be honest windows is getting a bit too dumbed down even for me And that's what stings, I guess. For all the things they do wrong, they get the most shit for one of the few things they got right. Everyman user will delay updates forever so they must be forced to apply them.
  - 8y ago

Jach 8y ago

Linux has at least 3 methods to hot swap the kernel to a new version. Rebooting is convenient but with some effort entirely optional.

trulyrandom 8y ago
Interesting. I only know about kexec. What are some other examples?
- Jach 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kexec#See%20Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kexec#See%20Also I always forget about the oracle one. They along with pure kexec all have their tradeoffs.
  - trulyrandom 8y ago
    Ah, right. Those allow applying small patches to a running kernel, but don't do a full kernel swap.

emsy 8y ago

An unpatched exploit is independent from applying an update. Serious exploits should be patched asap because they may endanger critical infrastructure. But I as the system administrator should be able to make the informed decision not to apply the update for my own reasons. Even windows 10 PROFESSIONAL doesn't allow this. It's a huge screwup on MS part.

type0 8y ago

> You should never have hours worth of unsaved work open. NEVER. How about running long compilations, video decoding, etc Seems to me that Windows is unsuitable for real work.

sisu2019 8y ago
how about you do pending updates and set your work time? I think planning is still allowed for real work yes? This is why I don't believe that all these complaints come from super productive future steven spielberg level content producers because people like that wouldn't even need to think about planning around such an utter triviality.
- asdffdsa 8y ago
  quite tragic how the only thing holding back untold numbers of academy-award caliber filmmakers are configurable Windows updates
- mrpigeonpants 8y ago
  What if I'm about to go to a concert, running late and I need to print tickets last minute, and suddenly windows needs to spend 30 minutes updating, without giving me a choice? The fact that you can't stop it in the moment is infuriating. Also, you can't expect the user to manually configure system updates.
  - sisu2019 8y ago
    what if on your way to the concert your car breaks down because you kept putting of the required maintenance for months and months? This is exactly analog to your example. "Car users can't be expected to initiate an oil change at their convinience". Oh please.
    - mrpigeonpants 8y ago
      My computer wouldn't break down without updates. I previously had windows 7 for years and never updated. And had consecutive months of uptime. You don't get it.

thatoneuser 8y ago

My chrome tabs restore just fine, thank you. I'm more about walking away from my workstation for an hour only to come back and spend 15 minutes opening up my terminals and other programs so I can get back to work. 15 minutes down every 2-3 days isn't negligible. If they need to update every other day then so be it, but do it without offloading the work of what should be modern OS functionality onto end users who now have to clean up your mess.

ragesh 8y ago
Every 2 to 3 days? My Windows 10 machines need an update maybe once a month.

kakarot 8y ago

Well I'm glad no one is hiring you to design user interfaces. Applications work for the user, not the developer. Applications are designed around business logic and customer demands, not how lazy the developer is. If Firefox saves my tabs on exit then I fully fucking expect my tabs to be there next time I open it up, regardless of my OS state. > MS hater of yesteryear kept blaming MS for the large number of unpatched and therefore insecure Windows systems This logic means that when W7 is up, I'm a bad person for not just upgrading to W10 despite it offering a completely different experience and despite the fact that I owe MS no brand loyalty.

sisu2019 8y ago
> I fully fucking expect my tabs to be there next time I open it up, regardless of my OS stat that's pretty short sighted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19267411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19267411 That "Have you tried rebooting it?" is a thing at all is pretty bad but it's going to be so much worse when apps and OSes interact in a way that prevents clean reboot.
- kakarot 8y ago
  I'm trying to figure out what someone's macbook being stuck in a bad state and needing an SPC and NVRAM reset has to do with this conversation. That happens all the time on macbooks. It also has no effect on whether FF's tabs come up next time. And if FF closes suddenly, you have a chance to discard your open tabs on start. Explain to me how my statement is shortsighted again?
  - sisu2019 8y ago
    sorry, I meant to post this link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19268201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19268201
    - kakarot 8y ago
      Sounds like an issue with Chrome, then. The OS handles its own state. That should be invisible to applications. Applications handle their own state. That should be invisible to the OS. As I said, Firefox offers a choice to restore or discard tabs after a bad start or shutdown of the program. If Chrome doesn't have good fail-safe mechanisms, I'm confused about what that has to do with Microsoft and what it has to do with me being shortsighted.

age_bronze 8y ago

I call bullshit. This crap can and will happen in unfortunate times such as opening a laptop for presentation, also note that shutting down a computer with lowish battery with update pending is a death sentence until you reach a charger, because you'll never make it past the stupid update. Just when you need it the most and it has the lowest battery this crap will pop. Minewhile some computers are stuck in update loop of failing to update, reverting, and retrying every god damn day again like anything will change. If you're too bad at ensuring updates work, dont force them down my throat the 100th time expecting something will change. I already accepted the fact your trash update will never work so can you please stop wasting my time?

gerdesj 8y ago

Finally, reboots are necessary on all major operating systems, even linux. Linux has a handy app called "needrestart". After you've updated it checks what needs restarting and offers to do it. If the kernel is updated then it will tell you to reboot. Some distros have live kernel patching which is as nutty as it sounds but seems to work. You only really have to reboot if the kernel is upgraded but to be honest, its a good idea to put in a reboot on a regular basis anyway and design your systems with some sort of redundancy to cope. In my experience, only Gentoo (and derivatives and the like) can take longer than Windows for updating. Bear in mind they compile packages from source code. Getting a LibreOffice and Firefox and a Window Manager (say Gnome or KDE) update at the same time is a recipe for a very hot lap.

creato 8y ago

> Also, please for the love of god, stop lobbying for OSes to faithfully restore your open apps on reboot. The only way to solve a lot of problems is to be able to really reset the state of everything which is not worth trading for your ability to better compulisvely hoard chrome tabs. Funny enough, someone just posted in the GPU.js thread about how it hard locked his machine, and because the OS restored chrome and chrome restored his tabs after rebooting, he was forced to take extra measures to recover: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=19265107&goto=item%3Fid%3D19264154%2319265107 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=19265107&goto=item%3Fi...

sisu2019 8y ago
perfect example, thank you!
muthdra 8y ago
Very legal and very cool.

mcny 8y ago

» Finally, reboots are necessary on all major operating systems, even linux. Remember Windows user used to be free to apply updates when they wanted but you, yes you, MS hater of yesteryear kept blaming MS for the large number of unpatched and therefore insecure Windows systems. So they don't give users the freedom to postpone indefinitely and of course it's also not right. So what can they do? 1. The easy stuff. Show a bright red warning that covers 10%, 20%, and progressively 50% of the primary display asking user to reboot at the next opportunity. However, don't reboot automatically unless the user opts into such behavior. 2. The hard stuff Take a hard look into what update requires reboot. Strip everything and hide almost all (I'm assuming we will need a kernel) those things from Windows home but keep them available using Windows features for a few years. Enterprise users might need backward compatibility but I think there is a lot of room to simplify Windows for the home.

finchisko 8y ago

I don't agree on a single point of you. You are preferring system over user. IMO, user should always have a choice to make final decision. Don't you want to restart or event download updates? You maybe like viruses or whatever reason, made you do so. Fine I don't care, it was your decision, and I (system) will respect that. I can only warn you, that your system might be at a risk. > You should never have hours worth of unsaved work open. NEVER. This is stupid either. I can have unsaved work. It's risky, but again it was my choice. Previous Windows, which didn't restart willy nilly, didn't suffer with this problem as much as W10. So this is definitely regression in UX.

finchisko 8y ago

Also the whole thing about the Windows restart after update is due Windows still has this stupid file locking mechanism, which prevents overwriting file when in use. It's the only mainstream system, which still has that. In macOS or Linux (specially Linux), I barely need to restart OS after updates.

Xelbair 8y ago

>Finally, reboots are necessary on all major operating systems, even linux. Yeah,no. Even windows 10 dosen't require you to reboot it often - the machine i am writing from wasn't rebooted in two months(i update it when it is convenient for me, and when i am sure that update is 'safe' to install - updates that delete your files would be better left to another discussion) - it is usually running few spatial analyses nightly. >You should never have hours worth of unsaved work open. NEVER. Don't blame windows or whatever, just dont ever do that or at least bear your shame quietly. It isn't about having the work open, it is about system dictating WHEN you need to stop working and bloody update it. We had a business presentation and our presentation laptop was running windows10 home - guess what happened? Obviously you can delay update, or even prevent them for a while - but the prompt(which allows delaying by up to 15minutes, blocking updates takes place in control panel if i recall right) didn't show while presentation was in fullscreen - and the update took 1.5 hours. Updating at reboot is fine, but users must have an option to NOT update at the next reboot(even if it is annoying as hell for user) - sometimes it is necessary - and remember that software serves the users, not the other way around. I agree that restoring open apps on reboot is a horrible practice in general, but when updating the OS without any user interaction - it is a must if you cannot update without rebooting the OS. What people are angry about isn't the idea that windows closes everything, or updates itself, but that they aren't in control of their computers.